Real Genjutsu
by Fenris1872
Summary: Discontinued Fic from my other profile.
1. Chapter 1

It was a bright morning in Konohagakure no sato and countless people were going about their morning routines of preparing breakfast, opening their stores, continuing their patrols and in one case, starting their second session of morning training for that day.

However there was one person that wasn't going about his regular activities.

He was short, probably only about three and a half feet at the most. His hair was a platinum blond that spiked in every direction possible, not that he cared, it made him look like his idol so he was happy with it that way. His face was round, with his cheeks being decorated by a set of whisker like birthmarks that drew focus away from his sparkling, azure eyes as they looked at the present he had been given by an old woman.

It was a simple silver ring with three symbols inscribed on it… 666.

She had said that it suited him, he didn't know why she said that but he did think it was cool even if a little simple… then again most five year olds do.

He was wearing a muddy and tattered t-shirt and some grey, knee length shorts that were covered in mud… he had to admit that he was considering running away from the orphanage considering how the old woman reacted upon seeing him like that before, it almost made him wish that he hadn't decided to play in the park earlier… almost.

He had to admit that he liked the caretaker, she was always nice to him… even if she scolded him a few times, then again he did earn them… just like he would today after sneaking out of the orphanage like he did.

Letting out a small sigh, the young blond proceeded to walk casually along the street towards the place he had called home since before he could remember. He wasn't oblivious to the countless stares sent his way, they were always present wherever he went and they were always cold, almost as if they didn't accept his existence.

He quickly removed himself from that line of thought, someone had accepted him, they had given him the ring… sure it was a little too big for him right now, but when he got older it would fit better, that much he realised… not that he wouldn't try it on now, it was too cool in his eyes to not at least try once.

That was when confusion struck. He was certain that the ring was too big for him, it was about twice the width of his finger yet it slid on and stayed in place on his right ring finger perfectly. It hadn't changed at all but for some reason it just fit without any difficulty, all in all it was quite a strange experience for the five year old blond.

Of course, being so young, he quickly forgot about it and just continued to merrily jog back to the orphanage, the ancient artefact once known as the 'unlucky ring' wrapped around his little finger.

XXX XXX XXX

Upon nearing the orphanage, the blond quickly ran to the shadows, before darting behind a sign closer to the orphanage, slowly getting closer while attempting to get in without being noticed, if he could do so then he might be capable of tricking the caretaker into thinking that he had never left in the first place.

"And exactly 'what' do you think you are doing out here?" came a stern call from behind him.

Naruto froze. He knew that voice anywhere and he was also VERY familiar with that tone… he had been caught and was in BIG trouble.

"Eh, heh, heh," came his nervous chuckle and before he had a chance to form an answer he found himself getting dragged into the orphanages front yard by the ear, like so many times before.

Once he was within the large building, he was released so that the caretaker could close the front door and ensure that no more children could escape like the whiskered blond.

The orphanage was a large building constructed from stone excavated from the Hokage monument back when it was first sculpted, while wood generated by the Shodaime Hokage himself was used to created the basic structure for the impressive building.

It was split into four sections, an front reception where people who want to adopt a child are allowed to meet the children in a one on one situation once they had picked out any that piqued their interest.

The largest section however was the midpoint and was where the kitchen, dining hall, play areas and the many classrooms were located. The classrooms were used on a regular basis, both to teach the children how to read, write and count, but also to teach them how to draw on chakra early should they decide to become a ninja later on.

The two final area's were simple, they were the right and left wing, where the children and caretakers slept, separated by gender, though there was always a caretaker in each wing, just in case something were to happen.

Outside of the main building where two yards created by a large stone wall that circled the building. The back yard was where the children were allowed to play if the weather was nice (which it normally was) and they wanted to go outside. The front yard however, was off limits to the children under normal circumstances due to the ease of which the children could leave through the front gate if they wanted to… just like the trouble making blond that had just been dragged back.

"How many times do I have to tell you to stay in the orphanage Naruto?!" the caretaker asked rhetorically as the blond rubbed his throbbing ear, though he didn't really care too much about it, he hurt himself more during his exploits and had already developed a surprisingly high pain tolerance for his age.

"Uh… I think it's 23, neechan," the blond grinned out as he turned to face the angry guardian. She was a surprisingly young woman, probably in her early twenties, with light blue hair that stretched down to her waist, azure eyes that bored into his very soul and flawless skin. She was wearing what every caretaker in the orphanage wore, navy blue trousers, with a navy blue shirt and a simple white apron atop them.

"That isn't funny Naruto, and you should know better than to leave the orphanage, it isn't safe for children to walk around the streets without a responsible adult," the young caretaker told him sternly as he began to nervously scratch his chin with his right hand, allowing the woman to see his new ring, "Naruto, where did you get that ring?" she asked, practically praying that he hadn't stolen it, she knew from experience that children can pick things up without thinking about the repercussions.

"Huh? You mean this?" he asked pointing towards the silver loop on his finger, earning a nod of confirmation from the nervous woman, "some old lady gave it to me, isn't that cool! She said it really suited me," the blue eyed boy almost shouted in excitement.

The caretaker was taken aback, someone had actually given the blond something despite the animosity that he normally received. She knew why he was disliked by so many, having a bijū sealed in you at birth can do that, but other than a deep seated fear that the seal holding the beast wasn't strong enough to hold it forever, she actually liked the little bundle of sunshine, though she did wish that he would stop causing her so much trouble.

Quietly eying the ring, she quickly noticed the symbols inscribed on it and her blood began to boil. Someone had given him that ring not out of kindness, but as a way of saying 'you're evil'. Quickly calming herself she decided to voice her concern to the blond.

"Naruto, do you know what the symbols on that ring mean?" she asked him kindly, hoping that what she was about to do didn't hurt him too much.

"Huh? Aren't they six hundred and sixty six?" came the confused response of the blond as he thought back to one of the classes he had a while ago.

"Yeah… but you see, writing them like that is usually a reference to an evil spirit… in other words… this old woman gave you that ring as another way of saying that you are evil when you anything but," she told him hoping that he wouldn't be too crushed by the revelation.

"W-what do you mean," came the child's response, his voice instantly losing all of its enthusiasm as he stared at her with dull blue orbs.

"I'm sorry, but as I said, those three numbers together are used to represent an evil spirit… this woman wants you to wear it as an admission that you are evil," the blue haired woman explained to the now teary eyed blond as he hung his head in defeat, "please don't cry Naruto, but if you don't want it I'll throw it away for you," she said hoping to cheer the blond up from his depression… that was when she noticed his clenched fists.

"No… I want to keep it, it's the only thing I have that's mine and I'll wear it, not because she wants me to wear it but because I want to wear it," the blond said after several minutes, his once dead eyes burning with a fire that could only be called determination.

Looking in the boys eyes, the caretaker couldn't help letting a small smile cross her face, so entranced by the sheer determination the blond displayed that she failed to notice the light indigo flame that the ring was emitting, before she suddenly remembered why they were in the reception.

"Oh and for running away," she said in a sing song voice, scaring the child more than when she was stern, "no dessert."

"What! NOOOOO!" and with that, the flame vanished as if it was never there to begin with and the young blond was once again dragged away by the ear and further into the orphanage.

XXX XXX XXX

Laying in his bed later that night, Naruto couldn't help but moan to himself about getting caught, if he hadn't been then he would've got some dessert. There was another thing that was stuck in his head though, his class had just been given their first ninja lesson which revolved around learning to access their chakra and much to the blonds' pleasure, he managed to get it in under ten minutes while the rest of the class failed to do so in the entire hour they were given.

That really added to his ego and drew the jealousy of the rest of the class. The class was also told about ninjutsu and genjutsu, though what was said was VERY basic and didn't actually teach them anything about using them, just what they were… it was that that caused the blond to decide what he would do in the future, he would be a ninja and use all the coolest jutsu's in existence… yeah, he was certain that the old man that came to see him every now and then would teach him.

Suddenly he noticed something he didn't before… a strange smell. He remembered that he had smelt it before, but he couldn't remember where. Closing his eyes, the young child tried to remember where he had smelt it before… and when he did, fear gripped him.

He remembered the smell when he had come across some homeless people sitting around a small fire on one of his 'adventures' outside the orphanage, but if he smelt that here then that meant only one thing… there was a fire and the caretakers had hammered it into the children that if there was ever a fire then they would have to stay away from it and leave the orphanage.

Quickly sitting up, the blond remembered what they were all told to do in the case of a fire.

"FIRE!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, waking up all the other children in the process.

"Huh? Naruto shut up, we're trying to sleep here," one of his roommates scolded before turning over to get back to sleep, they thought he was just trying to draw attention like he regularly did.

"NO! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!" the panicking five year old said as he jumped off his bed and started trying to get the others up with little success… until one of the caretakers charged through the door.

This one was an old lady with short white hair and green eyes… the one that was supposed to stay in the girls dormitory.

"Everyone get up! We have to get out of here NOW!" she stated sternly, shocking the children that refused to get up before.

"Huh? What's going on? Why do we have to get up?" one of the sleepy boys asked in confusion as he rubbed his eyes.

"There is a fire, we need to get out now!" came the serious response from the old woman.

Shock spread through the small room, they had thought Naruto had just been joking or trying to get some attention, but if what they had just heard was right then he was genuinely trying to save them.

It didn't take long for the children to be evacuated, though as soon as they were doing a head count, Naruto noticed someone missing.

"Where's neechan?" he asked loudly, already thinking about the implications of her absence… he might have been young but he was surprisingly intelligent despite how little he displayed it.

There was silence as the caretakers refused to look at the young blond, they knew how attached the boy was to the youngest of them… how would they tell him what happened without crushing him?

Their lack of a response said everything he needed to know. He remembered that awkward silence from one of his many trips outside the orphanage… it was the same one that a group of homeless people had made before telling him that a kind old man he had met on several occasions had died, before explaining to him that death is like sleeping, only you don't wake up… ever.

The caretakers were shocked when they saw the blonds eyes start to water as a look of horror plastered itself on his face, they hadn't told him anything, yet here he was, crying as if he knew what had happened.

"No… no… s-she c-can't be…" he started before he began to cry too hard to make any sense to the adults.

The rest of the children didn't understand why the blond was crying, they hadn't been told what had happened, besides, she'd be fine like always, it was just the way things were… at least that is what they thought, unlike Naruto most of them never left the sheltered life the orphanage had to offer and knew nothing of the real world.

Looking up to the blazing inferno that was once his home, Naruto couldn't help but think of all the fun times he had with his 'neechan' there, how she made learning to read and write fun, how she made learning to count simple… where she would scold him for leaving the orphanage yet again… eventually he felt his strength drain as he literally cried himself to sleep.

XXX XXX XXX

It had been a week since the fire at the orphanage and the disaster was officially labelled an accident. It appeared that when the caretakers where preparing their own meal for the night, the cooker had malfunctioned and instead of lighting a small fire just large enough to heat a pot with, the spark had ignited the ENTIRE gas canister that they had to hook up to it… the resulting explosion had started the inferno and sent shrapnel into the caretaker that was closest at the time… the young woman that Naruto had grown so attached to.

Naruto, already understanding what had happened, was allowed to attend the small funeral, where he once again cried himself to sleep, this time in the arms of his second favourite person, an old man that wore red and white robes and always smoked a pipe.

Due to the extensive damaged caused by the flames, the orphans had been given small apartments to share, while the caretakers would visit them every so often to make their meals, wash their clothes and generally make sure the children were alright. They were all growing concerned with the young blond since he barely ate anymore and spent most of his time at the local library continuing to practice his reading in solitude… no one else could compare to the young woman when it came down to teaching him.

XXX XXX XXX

Naruto was once again silent as he finished another book from the fiction section of the library before going and placing it back on the shelf. It had taken him a few weeks but now he understood the system well enough to put the books back himself.

Once again standing up, the dead eyed child proceeded to make his way back towards the correct section of the shelves before placing the piece of fiction back where he got it and picking up the book next to it without paying any attention to the title.

Slowly opening the tome, the blond was surprised when he found it to be in a completely different format to all the previous pieces of fiction he had read, instead it struck him as having the format of a factual book. So wanting to know why it was kept in the fiction section he did what made the most sense to him… he asked the librarian.

"Um, excuse me, but why was this in the fiction section?" he asked with clueless eyes and an innocent tone, prompting the middle aged woman with long pink hair and emerald green eyes, to turn and face him. As soon as she noticed who was talking to her, her eyes widened in shock… he had been coming in on a daily basis for the past month and had never said a word, instead choosing to pass his time reading fiction in a random order. Snapping herself out of her shock she proceeded to take the book from the blond and look at the title, letting out an exasperated sigh upon reading it.

"I know this book, it looks like a non-fiction book, but everything written in it is bull- I mean rubbish," the woman said, catching herself before saying something inappropriate in front of the child.

"Oh… well I'll read it anyway… it's not like I have much else to do," the blue eyed child said with lifeless eyes, before taking the book back off the woman.

"So, don't you do anything except read?" the middle aged librarian asked out of curiosity, she didn't know many children that could simply sit down and read for hours on end, even if they enjoyed the book.

"Not really," came the unenthusiastic response from the still depressed child, prompting the woman to think of something she could do for him.

"Well then, how about this, tonight I'm supposed to throw away some older books so we can make room for some new ones, would you like me to give them to you?"

Upon hearing that, the young blond perked up slightly, turning to face the woman in question.

"Why would you do that?" he asked suspiciously, he realized that normally people don't just give him something unless there is some form of catch to it and he was certain that this was no exception… as his neechan had said on countless occasions, he was a smart kid and he could do anything if he put his mind to it but one thing he never did was repeat the same mistake twice (except leave the orphanage, but he didn't count that as a mistake since it was deliberate).

"To be honest, I don't like the idea of perfectly good books going to waste, so since you obviously read quite a lot, I thought you might like to have some of the books we're throwing away," the pink haired woman stated with a small smile. She, like most of the village, knew exactly who he was… he was the Jinchūriki of the Kyūbi no kitsune, but she and her family were some of the lucky ones, she had only lost one friend during the bijū's attack and none of her property was damaged, so unlike many others, she was prepared to view the child for what he was, a child with a burden.

"T-thank you," came the hesitant thanks from the blond, he wasn't really used to such a friendly face and it disturbed him to see it on someone other than his neechan.

"It's quite alright, by the way, have you thought about what you want to do when you grow up?" she asked him kindly, wanting to know if the academy level ninja textbooks they would be throwing out would be of any use to him in the future.

"Yeah… I'm going to become a shinobi and make neechan proud," he said, growing quieter as he said it and remembered the woman that made him feel so happy when she was still there.

"She was a good woman," the pink haired librarian said quietly. Nearly everyone in Konoha knew of the woman that the 'demon' attended the funeral of, though most couldn't believe that he had cried himself to sleep that day, so it wasn't really something special when the pinkette said what she did.

"No… she w-was the best," Naruto muttered out as he reminisced about the young woman and everything she did for him, his eyes tearing up with each memory… until he felt a pair of arms wrap around him and pull him into a gentle hug, at which point he quietly cried into the chest of the librarian.

"Sshh, sshh, it's alright… it's alright to cry," she whispered into his ear as she rubbed his back and held him tight, feeling guilty that she reopened such a wound on one so young.

The small number of onlookers witnessing the display couldn't help but feel sorry for the child, even those that hated the child unjustly couldn't help but pity the sight in front of them.

After about fifteen minutes, the blond finally managed to calm himself down enough to stop sobbing, at which point he removed himself from the woman's arms with a quiet "sorry."

"It's alright, even an adult will cry when they lose someone precious to them," the pink haired librarian told him quietly, "now why don't you go and read something to take your mind off it," she suggested with a sad smile etched onto her face, prompting the blond to give her a small nod before heading over to a nearby table and starting to read the book he had taken to the woman.

It didn't take long for the blond to realise what the middle aged woman meant when she called it rubbish. It talked about some type of spiritual energy called 'dying will flames' and some objects that were used to draw out these 'flames' called 'dying will bullets and pills'.

The book 'proved' itself to be completely useless when it mentioned that rings could be used to utilise these flames, something that was obviously a lie due to the simple fact that no-one had never come across this phenomenon in any of the books he had read, which considering that they were supposed to be powered by resolve would've made any rings ignite in the middle of any ninja fight where the shinobi wore a ring.

However, as he began to read more into the book, the blond began to notice some things that one wouldn't unless they read through the whole thing with their complete attention. For example, he began to realise that the book didn't mean ANY ring, the rings were required to be made of a special material and even then they would have a certain 'flavour' of flame that they would react to while every other 'flavour' would be completely useless with it.

There were apparently seven flavours(1), they were known as Sky, Storm, Rain, Sun, Lightning, Cloud and Mist. Each type of flame was supposed to have a unique ability that set it apart, Sky's was known as Harmony, Storm was disintegration, Rain was tranquillity, Sun was activation, Lightning was solidification, Cloud was multiplication and Mist was creation.

The book went into detail concerning what the flames could be used for, giving both advantages and disadvantages of each flame… however it was the section after that that drew Naruto's attention the most, it covered a small group of unique rings that existed, they were referred to as the 'Tri-ni-Set' and the six 'Hell rings'.

The young blond allowed himself to focus solely on the supposedly incredible rings that were covered in detail by the tome, he allowed himself to marvel at the amazingly ornate Vongola and Mare rings, almost laughed at the Arcobaleno pacifiers and froze when he turned the page to the 'six hell rings'.

(1) I'm not including the seven flames of earth since they appear to be Shimon only.


	2. Chapter 2

_The young blond allowed himself to focus solely on the supposedly incredible rings that were covered in detail by the tome, he allowed himself to marvel at the amazingly ornate Vongola and Mare rings, almost laughed at the Arcobaleno pacifiers and froze when he turned the page to the 'six hell rings'._

There in a photo of the six legendary rings, was HIS ring. The exact same silver ring with 666 inscribed on it was located in the photo along with an ornate ring with a hazy, open mouthed skull appearing over it like some form of illusion, a simple ring with what seemed like several worm like tentacles erupting from a single point on it, a greenish yellow ring with a red padding around the gem that looked exactly like an eye, an ornate ring with four claw like clasps keeping the sapphire gem embedded in it in place and last but not least, a blue ring with what could only be described as a segmented horn protruding from it.

Naruto couldn't help but stare at the rings before finally snapping out of his stupor and proceeding to study the pages concerning these rings in detail, with his first discovery being that they were THE most powerful mist attribute rings in existence, however they each also possessed a unique ability that the book referred to as 'war doubling potential'.

The problem with the rings was that they were each cursed, the users soul was slowly consumed by the rings. However when he read about his own ring, his heart missed a beat. His ring had another curse… misfortune. Everyone that had ever worn the ring had been cursed with bad luck until the day they died.

Thinking about the fire at the orphanage, it had been 'bad luck' that his neechan had been the one to die… was it possible that her death had been caused by the ring? If so, why should he still wear it?

The spiky haired blond was about to remove the offending piece of jewellery when he remembered why he had kept it. He had told her that he would wear it because he wanted to and thinking back on things, he realised that it was his own selfishness that made him keep the ring and now that he knew what the ring could do, should he really throw it away? For one thing there was no way of telling if the ring really did bring misfortune or if it was just coincidence that the wearers were all unfortunate.

Then there was the power this ring could possess, if what the book was saying was true then it was entirely possible that this ring could grant him enormous power… if he had a mist affinity that is.

"_What would neechan tell me to do?" _he thought to himself as he closed his eyes in thought, _"she'd probably tell me to follow my heart wouldn't she," _a small smile came to his lips when he remembered one of the things she kept telling him to do, _"what does my heart want to do? It wants to keep the ring… to use it to protect the people I care about," _he finally decided, his will firmly set on his current course of action.

Slowly opening his eyes, the whiskered blond was shocked to see a light indigo flame glowing fiercely from the hell ring set upon his finger. Quickly looking around he was thankful that no one had noticed it yet and as soon as he turned back to the ring, the flame was nowhere to be seen.

Calming his breathing, Naruto thought back to what he was doing before the ring ignited… he had just decided to wear the ring no matter what. Now that he thought about it, he had just put his entire will into his decision, in other words, he had just made his resolve to protect everyone he cared about with the cursed ring,

Once again thinking about it, the ring lit once again, this time it's dim light being obscured by the blonds newly placed hand. He simply stared at the flame for several minutes before letting it die once again, before getting up from his seat, his mind thinking over the ring currently resting on his finger and the knowledge he could gleam from the book.

Slowly walking over to the woman that had comforted him earlier, he took a deep breath as he was about to do something he had never done before.

Haruno Isako was still cursing herself over opening the young blonds wound as she went through the list of books that would be disposed of, removing each one as she came to it and putting it aside for the whiskered child to take when he decided to leave.

"Um, excuse me," came the quiet voice of the young blond as he stood behind the woman, causing her to turn around and look at the child.

"I'm sorry but I've not finished getting the books ready yet, do you think you could stay a little longer?" she asked him with a kind smile though her jade eyes showed another emotion Naruto had only seen in the eyes of the old man before… one he still couldn't recognise.

"A-actually I wanted to ask if I could borrow this book," he muttered quietly slightly surprising the librarian at the request.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I just thought you were wanting to leave now, but anyway, wait… isn't that the same book as before?" she suddenly asked, curious as to why the child would want a useless book like that.

"Y-yeah, it's really fun to read," the spiky haired child said, not wanting to give away too much, he knew that if people didn't know what you could do, you could get away with so much more.

Isako gave a small smile, before telling the blond something that brightened his day.

"That is one of the books on this list, so if you want it, it's yours," she told him with a happy grin that carried on to her eyes this time.

Naruto's eyes widened as a large smile spread onto his face at the revelation, by the end of the day, the book would be his, meaning that he could begin training with his ring almost straight away… though he would have to learn some genjutsu to make any real use of it… hopefully he would be getting at least one book that could help him with that tonight.

With more enthusiasm than he had ever had since his neechan's death, the blond went back to his table and continued reading where he left off… quickly reaching the introduction for something called 'box weapons'.

XXX XXX XXX

"Thank you," Naruto said with a small smile as the pink haired librarian helped him take his new books home.

"It's alright, I don't often see children your age read so much and it would be a shame to see all these books go to waste just because you couldn't carry them all, as for the food, I was hungry as well so it just seemed right to get you something as well," the pinkette told him with a gentle smile that made the spiky haired blond feel safe in her presence.

Continuing to walk in silence, led the way to the apartment he stayed with some of the other orphans. It was small, only one bedroom, a small living room with an open plan kitchen and a single bathroom. The apartment was in poor condition, with wallpaper falling off the walls, while a few holes created a small draft and the furniture was in a condition that would be expected on a scrap heap.

The reason for this was simple, it was a bottom of the range area within Konoha and the apartment was meant for people that could barely afford to feed themselves and the Hokage didn't have the time or spare resources to give the orphans any better than what they were currently given… besides it was only temporary until the orphanage was rebuilt.

Slowly opening the door, the pair were greeted by a sight they didn't expect… the old village leader sitting at the single table that existed in the apartment.

He was an old man that wore the ceremonial robes and hat of Konoha's leader every time he was seen in public or handing out missions, while his face was decorated by a white goatee, several liver spots and a couple of creases that ran down from his eyes. His name was Sarutobi Hiruzen, Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure no sato and also known as the 'Shinobi no kami' due to his strength in his prime.

"Your caretaker told me you would be back sooner or later, now come on Naruto-kun, the orphanage has been rebuilt enough for you to go back," the aged Hokage said calmly, his eyes widening slightly when he noticed the other person to enter the apartment, "ah, Haruno-san what are you doing here?"

"I'm sorry Hokage-sama, the library was throwing away some old books and I thought Naruto-chan here would like to have them, I was just helping him carry them here," she explained to the Sandaime, surprising him with the honesty behind her words.

"I see… however I must ask that you do something else with those books, the orphanage doesn't have the room available for now," the 'Shinobi no Kami' stated quietly before proceeding to stand and walk towards the door, "come on Naruto, let's get you back to the orphanage," the old ninja said with a soft smile.

"No."

Sarutobi blinked. And blinked again. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?" he asked wondering if his hearing was worse than he thought it was.

"I said no… I don't want to go back there… I have too many memories of neechan in that place," the young blond told him with sadness clear in his tone while his arms were crossed over his chest and his head held low.

Sarutobi could only flinch at the comment, he had forgotten that the blond understood what had happened to the young woman, then again all the paperwork he had to deal with didn't leave him much time for remembering things like that.

"So what do you want to do Naruto-kun?" he asked hoping to find some form of inspiration from the former bundle of sunshine.

"I… I want to stay here," came the surprising response, not only because of the state of the apartment but also the conviction that saturated his voice, if the old man's guess was right then he wouldn't be capable of swaying the blonds decision… that didn't mean he wouldn't try though.

"Why would you want to stay here? The apartment is practically falling apart, you wouldn't have anyone to help you if you needed it," the aged Hokage started only to get interrupted by the third person in the room.

"If he needs help he can always ask me, I'll be more than happy to help him when I have free time," Isako told the Hokage with a smile etched onto her face.

"Don't you have a daughter of your own to look after?" Hiruzen asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, but I also have an unemployed husband that needs to start pulling his weight around the house more," the pinkette said with a slightly viscous grin making itself clear at the edge of her lips, causing the Hokage to take an involuntary step back… he had learned to fear that look back when his wife was still alive, "and he could always come over here and fix the place up, he has plenty of time to spare."

"Really?" came the wide eyed response from the blond who just looked at her, his arms still folded with his right hand hidden. Giving a calming smile and a single nod was all she did before the blond gave a massive grin and his eyes began to tear once again.

Looking at the happiness on the blonds face, the aged Hokage decided that it was time for him to say his piece and let the blond settle in to what was from now on, going to be his apartment.

"Well I can live with that, however, I will be checking up on you whenever I get the time so things had better be going well if you want to keep living here," the old man said calmly, earning an enthusiastic nod off the youngster before deciding to make sure the blond knew something important, "one other thing Naruto, since you are an orphan and will basically be living alone, you will need to come to my office every Sunday to receive your weekly allowance."

"Weekly allowance?" Naruto asked puzzled due to the fact that he had never heard the word allowance before, "what's allowance? And why is it weekly?"

"An allowance is a bit of money that you get given so you can buy things like food and clothes, the reason it's weekly is so you don't spend it all at once," Isako told him with a small smile as she noticed the blond focus intently on her explanation… if only her daughter was as focused as the boy in front of her.

She had tried to get the girl to read and learn more but in the end the little girl opted to play with flowers and mud… not a nice combination when she decides to bring it in the house.

"Oh I get it, thanks Jiji," came the enthusiastic statement from the blond, earning a warm smile off the old leader as he proceeded to walk towards the door.

"It's quite alright Naruto-kun, just make sure you don't get into too much trouble now, I'll see you soon," and with that the aged leader left the apartment, curious as to why the blond never showed his right hand throughout the entire conversation.

"Well, I guess that's all that's left for today, I guess I'll see you tomorrow Naruto-chan," the middle aged woman said with her usual smile.

"Maybe… I was going to go and get a head start in my ninja training with the books you gave me," the child told her with a small smile that once again managed to reach his eyes.

"So? You WILL be coming back tomorrow night so don't try to argue with me young man," she told him in a stern, almost motherly tone, causing the blond to turn his head away nervously.

"O-okay, Isako-san," Naruto said, using the name he read on her name badge back in the library.

"Well, I'd better get home now, who knows what my husband will be thinking right now," she muttered the last bit to herself as an annoyed expression made itself present on her features.

"Alright, then I'll see you tomorrow," the blond said happily as she put the pile of books she was carrying on the table the Hokage had been sitting at.

"Yes, now be a good boy and don't push yourself too hard tomorrow," and with a quick ruffle of the child's hair, Isako left the apartment, closing the door behind her.

Once he was certain the woman had truly left and wouldn't be returning, the blond let his arms down for the first time since he got to the apartment, revealing a small burn mark on the back of his left arm, the same shape as his ring.

"Dammit, this ring is really annoying… I mean why can't it stop making that fire? I don't want everyone to know about it yet," the whiskered child muttered to himself as he used cold water to try and cool down the mark.

He was definitely lucky that he had a VERY high tolerance of pain otherwise the old man would've realised he was being hurt regularly during their conversation. So the blond would have to practice both igniting and killing the flame instead of just lighting it like he thought he would have to.

Feeling drained from everything that had happened earlier, the blond opted to simply make his way to HIS bedroom and collapse on the old and worn mattress before allowing sleep to claim him.

XXX XXX XXX

Deep within a massive cage held in a boiler room, a powerful entity was desperately thinking about what it could do. Why had its container been involved in a series of coincidences that allowed him to rediscover the power known as dying will flames? Even back when it was complete it had difficulty with that power, but now, it was nothing more than a mass of power with an evil aura… and it knew for a fact that dying will flames could cleanse auras… which would effectively kill it and leave its power for the blond container.

It was a scary thought, it, a being that had existed since the time of the Rikudo Sennin, a being famous for its overwhelming power, would be at the mercy of a mere child if he ever discovered the truth.

It was then that the being known as 'the Kyūbi no kitsune' realised that if it wanted to live, it would have to compromise with its host… something it had always been too proud to ever consider before… but it realised, pride is worth nothing in death, and would do whatever it needed to in order to ensure its survival.

Now if it could only figure out how to talk to the brat.

XXX XXX XXX

The next morning we find Naruto going through several physical exercises in one of the training grounds just outside of the village in an attempt at a good warm up since according to the book he was reading, a good warm up was an important part of any training session.

Normally children wouldn't be allowed out of the village but for him circumstances were different, unlike many other children he was naturally talented at stealth… hence why he was the only one to be capable of sneaking out of the orphanage… just like he had done with the village today.

Finally finished with the warm up, Naruto proceed to walk back to the book he was reading so that he could figure out what to do next.

Taking a seat on a large rock, he started to read the books explanation of chakra and its uses… quickly discovering that the energy acted like water in how it flowed through the body in a series of 'pipes' before being released through the tenketsu which acted like a tap.

Finally finishing the section concerning the manipulation of chakra, Naruto proceeded to do something the book said should be a simple exercise, using chakra to glue a leaf to your forehead. The symbolism of the exercise didn't escape the blond, gluing a leaf to your forehead was like declaring your loyalty to the village, almost like wearing its hitae-ate like one of its ninja.

Placing the leaf to his forehead, the blond proceeded to channel a small amount of chakra before trying to use it to attach the leaf… his eyes widening in surprise when it flew off his face like a bullet.

Giving an annoyed grumble at using too much chakra, Naruto retrieved the leaf before attempting the exercise again and again and again.

The blond couldn't understand it, no matter how hard he tried he simply couldn't get the leaf to not fly off his forehead, which according to the book meant he was using too much chakra… the only excuse he could think of was that he simply had too much chakra to do the simple exercise.

Because of his revelation, the blond proceeded to assume a meditative pose as his mind began to race over ways of minimising his chakra usage.

For several hours he sat there, unflinching as he focused on his objective of improving his control when something finally came to him.

If chakra acted like water, then if he could slow the flow then he would be capable of gathering less and being more precise with how much chakra he could use at a time.

Due to this idea, the small blond started to focus on his rapidly flowing chakra coils and for the first time he was amazed at what was going through his tiny body. Every 'pipe' in his body was filled to bursting point and flowing almost too fast for him to keep up with, actually feeling his chakra in such detail made one thing clear to the blond, it was no surprise he couldn't gather small amounts of the water like energy.

Calming his breathing, Naruto did what made sense to him, he focused on his chakra and using his willpower alone, he attempted to slow it down, with very minor success, however since he had at least a little success, he kept at it and for the rest of the day, the blond simply sat there, willing his chakra to slow down… his ring blazing with his resolve to complete this stage of his training.

XXX XXX XXX

That night a mentally exhausted blond made his way back to his apartment, his books in hand as he proceeded to put more concentration into controlling the flame his ring would emit, his real focus being on keeping his resolve without igniting the indigo flame. He was succeeding to some degree, as long as he focused on keeping the flame dead then it wouldn't light itself, however if he lost his focus it would spark to life in an instant… something that he didn't want to happen.

Coming across the front door to the small flat, Naruto was caught off guard when he found it unlocked, he was certain he had locked it before leaving that morning. Slowly turning the handle and inching the front door open, Naruto's caution was thrown out the window when he saw a familiar head of pink hair in the kitchen.

"Hey Isako-san," the blond said with a happy tone, though it lacked any enthusiasm, as he proceeded to collapse at the kitchen table.

"Hello Naruto-chan, Hokage-sama gave me a spare set of keys earlier today, I hope you don't mind me coming in too much," the middle aged woman said with a small smile.

"Heh, I was just worried someone had broken in," the whiskered child muttered quietly as he let his head hit the table.

"So how did your first day of training go?"

"(sigh) I found out my chakra flows way too fast," came the depressed response from the five year old.

"What do you mean it flows too fast?" the pinkette asked him in confusion, she knew nothing about ninjas due to being born and raised a civilian like many of Konohas inhabitants.

"I mean I can't use small amounts of chakra yet… so instead of training like I was hoping to, I'm having to learn how to slow my chakra flow so I can use small amount before I even try to do any kind of normal training," the blond admitted with his eyes staring into space.

"Well if you are already being forced to put so much effort into controlling your chakra then when you've finally got it under control you should be better than everyone else your age shouldn't you?" Isako asked, both hoping to lift the blonds spirits and understand it herself.

"I never thought about it that way… heh, thanks Isako-san," came Naruto's response as enthusiasm leaked into his tone and he managed to find the energy to sit up and focus on his chakra coils once more.

Since the beginning of his meditation earlier that day, he had managed to decrease the speed of his chakra flow by about half a percent, so although it wasn't much, it was there and with practice, he was hoping that within the year he could get his flow to a point where he could control it enough to stick that damn leaf to his head.

Isako looked at the blond with a small smile, to think that he was still prepared to continue with his training despite coming across such a setback, it warmed her heart to see such determination in a child so young… if only her daughter could be more like him then she would go far in life.

When she finally managed to pull her mind away from how she wished her daughter would be, she noticed something she hadn't before, the indigo glow that came from the direction of the blonds hands. She had to admit that she didn't know what was happening over there and despite her interest, she decided that she should focus on the food she was preparing for the blond instead of what he was doing in his own home.

Once the meal had been prepared, the librarian placed a dish in front of the whiskered child who immediately quit his meditation and with a quick 'itadakimasu' proceeded to eat the dish at a ferocious pace, shocking the woman with his appetite.

Once again she began to wish her daughter was more like the little blond, she was such a fussy eater and would never finish her meals, something that wasn't good for a growing girl to do, especially considering the fact that she was planning on becoming a konoichi when she grew up.

"So Naruto-chan, what was that glowing when you meditated?" she asked out of nowhere, shocking the blond, though he managed to catch himself before she noticed.

"Don't worry, I was just releasing a little bit of chakra to try and slow my flow," he said without missing a beat, he had to admit, considering that he hadn't even thought of an excuse, it was a pretty good one to use on a civilian that knew nothing of ninja.

"Oh, sorry, I never even thought about that," the slightly embarrassed woman said, she should have realised it would be something like that, he was trying to control his chakra after all.

"Heh, it's alright, oh by the way, thanks for the food, it was awesome!" the cheerful blond said loudly, earning a happy smile off the middle aged woman, her daughter was never that enthusiastic about her cooking.

"Thank you Naruto-chan, now I hate to say it but I really should be going home now," she said with a hint of regret in her voice as she proceeded to stand from the table.

"Oh, alright then, I'll see ya tomorrow Isako-san," and with a small smile, the emerald eyed woman ruffled the blonds' hair before leaving the small apartment and locking the door behind her.

"(phew) if she knew anything about ninja and chakra then she wouldn't have fallen for that… I really need to learn how to keep that damn flame dead," the young blond muttered to himself as the light indigo flame burst into life once again, "dammit, do I really have THIS much resolve in everything I do?"

Focusing on his resolve and the flame on his ring, the young blond spent the rest of the night trying to get the flame to stay dead for as long as possible, before his concentration slipped and he found himself unable to continue, at which point he dragged himself to his bed, where he fell asleep almost immediately courtesy of his mental exhaustion.


	3. Chapter 3

Sitting on a large rock in the middle of one of the random training grounds found around Konoha was a familiar mop of blond hair. He was wearing what could only be described as typical civilian clothes, however what stood out most about him was that he had a single small leaf glued to his forehead.

"Heh, I can't believe how easy it is to do this now," he muttered to himself as he proceeded to stand and make his way over to the old book he had brought with him.

It had been nearly three months and the blond had been practicing controlling his flame and slowing his chakra flow nearly eighteen hours a day, every day and the results spoke for themselves. He was finally capable of keeping the flame dead whenever he wanted to and he had succeeded in decreasing the speed of his chakra flow to a mere 1.5% of what it originally was… something that allowed him to draw exactly how much chakra he needed, though he still needed to figure out how much was needed for certain effects.

His physical conditioning hadn't improved due to his lack of proper exercise, he did however make sure he did enough warm ups to keep himself in decent shape, which combined with Isako's balanced cooking meant he was perfectly healthy.

However his current training had hit a small snag. In order for him to use the true power of his mist ring he NEEDED to learn genjutsu, something which all the books he had only covered in practically no detail, simply stating that genjutsu involves using chakra to implant a false perception in the victim, whether it be through vision, taste, smell, hearing or touch, it also stated that in order to break out of a genjutsu you simply had to spike your chakra or hurt yourself, though those methods didn't always work.

And so the blond was now stuck with nothing except taijutsu and what they referred to as the 'academy three' the three D rank ninjutsu that academy students are required to know in order to pass the graduation exam… though it was known that there were exceptions in the rule, for example, if the graduate possessed a rare genetic disorder that prevented them from creating chakra.

Then again, two of the academy three could easily be enhanced with the mist flame he possessed, though they would still be weak compared to free form genjutsu… but as they say, beggars can't be choosers, so he did what seemed like the best thing for him to do with the information he had… started learning how to perform the academy jutsu.

The first one he read was quite simple, by following a set of handseals and concentrating his chakra, it would be possible for him to create illusionary copies of himself. Quickly opening another book he had brought, he followed the instructions for the necessary handseals, before proceeding to practice chaining them together.

XXX XXX XXX

Isako had to admit, she was happy that her daughter was so… enthusiastic about meeting someone new, she really did want her to get along with the lone blond, he definitely needed the friendship.

Today was her day off and she had finally decided to introduce her daughter to Naruto… sure she would have preferred it to be under different circumstances but unfortunately the boy was considered too politically important for the Hokage to allow anyone to adopt him… if he did it could cause severe tension among the different clans of Konoha and possibly even break down the well established hierarchy of the village due to the large number of protests from powerful clans.

Sure it was entirely possible that that wouldn't happen due if she adopted him due to her being nothing more than a civilian, however the Hokage wasn't prepared to take the risk and officially stated that Naruto was ineligible for adoption.

That didn't stop her from acting like a mother for him though… which was one of the reasons she wanted to introduce her daughter to the whiskered blond, having a 'sibling' figure in their life could help them both cope with life in a ninja village a little better.

Calmly walking up to the blonds' front door with her daughter in tow, Isako pulled out a simple key before unlocking the apartment and motioning the little girl to go inside.

Over the three months since the blond had moved in Isako had 'convinced' her husband to fix up the small flat, so it was no longer a disaster zone and (courtesy of a fresh coat of paint) was actually quite nice now.

The once damp and hole riddled walls were now sealed and given a damp proof layer to protect them from the elements, before they were painted a light cream colour. The once roach ridden furniture had been replaced with some cheap and simple counterparts that had been bought firsthand for the blonds' apartment. The kitchen had been thoroughly cleaned and the cupboards had been replaced with ones that weren't rotting, while the electrical appliances had been repaired by a friend of the family.

All in all the apartment had undergone a major redecoration and was no longer barely habitable, something the blond was deeply grateful for… even if he spent barely any time there in the first place.

"So where is he?" the young girl asked as she stepped into the room and noticed that there was no one there. She was young, only about the same age as Naruto, her bright pink hair went down to her shoulders while framing her slightly larger than average forehead. Her eyes were the same shade of emerald as her mothers and she wore a simple red dress.

"He's probably still training, he's planning on becoming a ninja when he grows up so he's working really hard and trying to get as good as he can before he enters the academy," Isako told the young girl, who in turn looked at her strangely.

"Why? Isn't the academy there to teach you how to be a ninja? So what's the point of trying to learn before going?" the young pinkette asked, earning an exasperated sigh of the older woman.

"Look, why don't you ask him when he gets back, I'm sure he will be more convincing than me," and with that the older pinkette went to the kitchen to prepare a meal for the trio.

Watching her mother head to the kitchen, the young girl decided to explore the small apartment, growing disinterested very quickly… all the occupier had concerning personal possessions were clothes and books… and none of them were very exciting (in her eyes). Whoever this kid she was supposed to be seeing was, one thing was for certain in her mind… he was boring.

XXX XXX XXX

Naruto felt a fist impact with the side of his jaw, nearly dislocating it in the process, as he flew back a few feet from the harsh blow.

Slowly lifting himself to his feet he trained his eyes onto his opponent… a replica of himself. It hadn't taken him long to get the bunshin no jutsu to work and when he was confident he had it down, he decided to infuse the illusion with mist flames.

The results spoke for themselves, what was once an illusion was now a living, breathing, thinking copy of himself complete with his strength and skill. The only thing this copy had that was different to him was the lack of a functioning hell ring and stamina that was completely dependent on his focus.

That also made it the ideal sparring partner. It was at the same level of skill as him and apart from it being capable of outlasting him, it was his equal in every area… well until he grew tired and his movements grew sluggish like they did now.

Quickly realising that he was beginning to push himself too hard, the young blond decided to dispel his copy, its form dissolving into the air, before making his way home.

Walking a steady pace back to his apartment, Naruto couldn't really care about the looks he was receiving from the villagers. Their eyes always held one of two emotions, hatred or pity. Personally he preferred the eyes of those that hated him, sure he had heard them accuse him of burning down the orphanage on several occasions but he hated the idea that people pitied him, it didn't make sense that people would feel sorry for him and not actually do anything… it just seemed like a waste of energy to him.

Eventually he arrived at the front door of his apartment, his hand reaching out to see if the door had been unlocked, he wasn't disappointed when he felt the handle turn and the door open courtesy of his ministrations.

"Hey Isako-san!" he called out loudly when he saw a familiar head of pink in the kitchen… before he noticed another sitting on the sofa, "uh, I don't mean to be rude but… who are you?" he asked the smaller figure blankly.

"Hello Naruto-chan, that's my daughter Sakura, Sakura-chan why don't you introduce yourself to Naruto-chan?" Isako called from her place in the open plan kitchen, earning a small pout from her daughter.

"Do I have to?" Sakura asked childishly as she folded her arms over her chest.

"Yes you do," the slightly annoyed mother told her from the kitchen.

"(sigh) fine then… my names Sakura," the moody girl said with a pout… she really didn't want to waste her time with someone that didn't even have a single game or toy in their home.

"Uzumaki Naruto… nice to meet ya," he said with next to no enthusiasm, she really didn't seem like she wanted to talk with him so why bother trying to get her to like him?

"Naruto-chan? What's wrong? You're normally more lively than that," Isako asked with concern lacing her voice, from her place in the kitchen.

"Why bother? It's obvious she doesn't want to be here, so why should I bother?" he asked shocking the young girl as her mother let out a small sigh of annoyance.

"Sakura, please stop being so stubborn and give Naruto-chan a chance," the oldest in the room asked the young pinkette.

"Why? He's so boring! All he has is books! No toys, no board games, nothing!" the emerald eyed girl shouted at her mother in anger at being told who to like.

"Heh, games? Toys? Heh, I can't afford things like that," the whiskered blond said with an air of emptiness in his voice, the sheer coldness his tone radiated scared the young girl and shocked her mother, "the only reason I have those books is because Isako-san gives me the ones the library throws out… so let me just say this, don't judge someone by their possessions alone… sorry if I've upset you Isako-san," and with that said, the young blond proceeded to place the books he took with him back on their shelf before making his way over to the table.

Isako couldn't help but let a tear fall from her eye when she realised just how inattentive to the blond she had been, she had been so concerned with giving him things to read and fixing up the place that she never thought about getting him some toys… despite his maturity he was still just a child and children needed a release… she had just assumed that he found that release in the form of books and now she was questioning that belief.

"B-but if you can't afford toys or games then what do you do for fun?" Sakura asked, her preconception of the blond shattered with his previous statements.

"I do the only thing I know how to… read and train, I'm planning on becoming a shinobi so it works out fine," the spiky haired child informed the girl, causing her eyes to widen in realisation.

"So you keep training because you don't have anything else to do, I thought you actually had a good reason for wanting to train now," she said obnoxiously.

"You mean that I don't want to die?" he replied, confusing the girl and causing Isako's heart to miss a beat in nervous anticipation.

"Huh? What do you mean 'die'?" the pink haired child asked, having heard the term before several times but not actually understanding the meaning behind the word.

"Heh… death is like going to sleep… only you NEVER wake up, you begin to rot and in time, you become nothing more than a memory, buried deep within the ground," the blond stated with a faraway look in his eyes.

"No, you're lying! You're just trying to scare me aren't you?! Well it isn't funny so stop it alright!" Sakura said with fear drenching her voice.

"You've never had someone close to you die before have you Sakura… otherwise you would know I'm not lying," Naruto told her with dead eyes.

"Kaasan, please say it isn't true," the young girl pleaded to her mother in an attempt to prove the blond wrong.

There was a tense silence as Isako processed what the blond had said… she simply couldn't believe that such a young child understood death that well and could explain it like that… it tore her heart to think that a child could be so accustomed to the idea of death.

"Kaasan?" the younger pinkette called out nervously when she received no answer.

Slowly turning towards her daughter, Isako couldn't help but shed another tear as she said something she knew could cause her daughter to hate her, "it's true."

That was the moment Sakura's picture of the world shattered. She had heard that many ninja die young, however she had never thought about what that actually meant until now.

"B-but I heard ninja die young, why do you want to be one if you know you'll die?" she asked the blond, earning a small laugh off him.

"Because, I have to become one if I want to protect the people I care about," he told her with what seemed like a fire lit in his eyes… he might have been capable of stopping the ring from lighting but his dying will was still powerful.

The young girl couldn't help but admire the blond now, he knew exactly what he was getting himself into and refused to back down… because he wanted to protect his friends and family. It was then that she made her resolve… she would follow his example and start training early.

"N-Naruto-san, tomorrow, could I join you training?" she suddenly asked, catching both the blond and her mother off guard with the request.

"Huh? Umm... well can you use chakra?" the spiky haired blond asked, receiving a shake of her head in response, "well you see, my training right now NEEDS chakra, so until you can use it, then I'm sorry but you can't join me," he informed her sadly… honestly he really did like the idea of having someone to train with but as he said, until she could draw on her chakra, she couldn't join him in the same exercises he practiced. He would teach her how to draw on her chakra if he knew HOW to teach it, however he could barely remember the classes that the orphanage gave concerning that technique because it had become that ingrained into him over time.

"Then teach me," she almost demanded, receiving a sad look off the blond.

"I can't… I don't remember the classes and I can't actually remember how I draw on my chakra, I just do it," he admitted to the young, pink haired girl.

"Fine then, how about this, if I learn how to draw on my chakra then you'll help me train!" she said commandingly, earning a small smile off the spiky haired youth.

"Heh, sure thing, just try to be quick about it or you'll never catch up!" Naruto said enthusiastically, causing both Sakura and her mother to give off a warm smile at the declaration.

"Well then Sakura-chan, if you want to train with Naruto-chan then you'll just have to read now won't you," Isako said as she brought the now ready meal over to the table and laying it in front of the children.

"What?! Why won't you teach me?" the emerald eyed girl asked in shock.

"Why? That's easy, I've never trained as a ninja so I can't use chakra, let alone teach you how to," the older woman told her, unable to hold back her smile when she saw her daughters shocked expression, "now come on and eat up today, you'll need all the energy you can get if you're going to start training."

Naruto couldn't help but smile at the scene before him, for the first time since his neechan's death, he actually felt like a part of a family… and with that realisation in his mind, he proceeded to eat his meal with a warm feeling in his chest.

XXX XXX XXX

To think that it had already been three weeks since he had met Sakura. She had apparently started trying to draw out her chakra on a daily basis and although it took her two days to find it, she had required the rest of the three weeks to increase her speed in drawing on the water like energy to a suitable level to start training with him.

During that time, the blond had proceeded to learn the other two academy jutsu and practice taijutsu with his newly dubbed 'kiri bunshin". Of course the real problem he faced was that all he could do right now was practice his taijutsu and the trio of academy techniques, which he realised meant only one thing… he would have to search out someone that was willing to teach him more than the absolute basics.

Of course he had promised Sakura that she could train with him once she learned to draw on her chakra and Uzumaki Naruto never went back on his word… it just meant that he had to help her learn the academy three and then spar with her in taijutsu.

Speaking of taijutsu, he had to admit that it was really quite fun to spar with his kiri bunshin, especially now that he had a bit of experience, for the simple reason being that he could rely on them to push him to his limits no matter how much stronger he got… something he was uncertain of due to only fighting copies of himself.

So here he was waiting for Sakura to arrive so he could get his first real opponent. Then again, it was entirely possible that she had been caught trying to leave the village walls, he never really thought about it due to escaping being one of his specialties, but Sakura's stealth skills were an unknown to him and thinking about it, it was entirely possible that she had been caught by the gate guards.

"Yo, what are you doing?" came a calm call from an unfamiliar voice. Slowly turning to face the voice, Naruto was a little surprised to see a tall and lanky man wearing a hitae-ate over his left eye and a cloth mask that covered the lower half of his face. He wore navy blue shinobi pants with bandages wrapped around his ankles, while his feet were protected by a pair of ninja sandals of the same shade. He wore a standard olive green flak jacket over a navy blue shirt with red spirals decorating the biceps, while a pair of metal plated gloves protected his hands. His hair was white and stood up in gravity defying spikes that just seemed to suit what you could see of his face.

Naruto couldn't bring himself to say anything, he simply couldn't tell if the person was angry at him or not… though he expected the latter.

"Well, I'm waiting," the tall man said blankly, he already had an idea since he had watched the blond train before on several occasions and never really considered it a problem… though he was curious about how the blond could create a reinforced Kage bushin at his age and with seemingly no effort, despite that though, the Hokage didn't show any concern over the boys already massive chakra reserves and instead asked him to find out where Naruto had learned the technique.

"W-well ya see, I…" the spiky haired blond sputtered out nervously, he really didn't want to get into trouble with this man, even if he didn't seem particularly threatening to him.

"Well come on, you've usually started sparring with your bunshin by now," the silver haired man said calmly, causing the blond to reel back in shock. This man knew what he was doing here and seemed to be more curious about why he hadn't started sparring with his bunshin yet.

"Heh, well you see… a friend was supposed to be joining me today and I was just waiting for them," Naruto admitted to the older man, who's single visible eye closed in what could only be described as an eye smile.

"Oh, is that all, would your friend happen to be a young girl with pink hair?" the stranger asked him calmly, causing the blonds' eyes to widen in surprise while he gave an affirmative nod, "I see… well she was caught by the gate guards trying to leave the village walls so she won't be coming today," the stranger told him blankly, causing the blond to deflate at the news.

"So are you going to take me back?" the spiky haired blond asked the stranger in defeat.

"No," was the blunt and unexpected answer of the older man.

"Huh? You're not going to take me back?" Naruto couldn't help but be surprised at that statement, he had always assumed that if he was caught he would be taken straight back to the village like children normally were.

"Nah, I told Hokage-sama about you training out here and he just seemed happy that you had decided to get a head start in being a ninja," the one eyed giant told the little boy nonchalantly.

"You mean Jiji is alright with me sneaking out of the village?" the blond asked in shock, he had never expected to hear that the old man would let him leave the village walls.

"As long as you stay within the surrounding training fields then yes, he is fine with you leaving the town," the white haired ninja said in his usual relaxed tone.

Naruto couldn't help but feel elated at that fact, the old man trusted him enough to let him sneak out of the village without any repercussions, even if it was only to train as a ninja. During his elation his mind wandered to the one thing that could make it better… and decided to asked the strange man about it.

"Um, excuse me Ninja-san," Naruto said with a slight hint of nervousness in his voice, causing the older man to look at him kindly.

"My names Kakashi, you don't have to worry about telling me yours, hokage-sama already told me who you are," the newly dubbed Kakashi told the young blond, who let out a small smile at the information.

"Well, Kakashi-san, do you know anything about genjutsu?"

Kakashi was shocked, the blond had asked him about genjutsu… it was often considered one of the most underrated families of techniques around due to the simple fact that there were not many that could use them to their full potential and therefore, people often underestimated their strength when in reality, it was purely the strength of the user that wasn't that great.

"I know a little, why do you want to know?" the silver haired adult asked with curiosity drenching his voice as he wondered why the blond wanted to know about illusions.

"I was wondering if you could possibly teach me," Kakashi nearly choked, this kid that could create a reinforced Kage bunshin was asking him to teach him genjutsu when a child would normally want to learn ninjutsu… that was when it hit him.

"Well Naruto, first things first, do you know the difference between nin and genjutsu?" the ninja asked the child, earning a snort off the blond.

"Of course I know the difference, ninjutsu is using chakra to attack your opponent and genjutsu is using your chakra to deceive your opponent," he took that back, the kid DID know the difference between the two.

"Okay… you do realise that you would probably be more suited to learning ninjutsu right?" the silver haired adult asked the blond, earning a blank stare off the child.

"What makes you say that?" Naruto asked, genuinely confused as to how the ninja had decided that so quickly.

"Well you've been making reinforced kage bunshin to spar with, now the thing is that that technique requires a VERY large amount of chakra to perform which means that you would have a chakra capacity more suited to learning jutsu that use a lot of chakra," the Jōnin explained to him calmly, earning another blank stare off the child.

"Well I want to learn genjutsu," came the deadpanned response, shocking the man with the simple dismissal of most ninjas favourite area of combat.

"Are you serious? If you learn ninjutsu you can actually hurt your opponents and don't have to worry about them releasing the illusion," Kakashi tried to reason to the young blond.

"So? Genjutsu needs less chakra and disrupting your enemies senses and using that time to slit their throats works better than a fireball," Naruto stated seriously as he began to question the silver haired mans intelligence.

"Heh, heh, hahaha, alright then, I guess I'll give up trying to convince you to learn ninjutsu however I would like to ask where you learned that bunshin," the one eyed man asked lightly.

"It was an experiment," Naruto said calmly, causing the Jōnin's eye to suddenly turn serious.

"An experiment you say?" the masked man asked sceptically with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"Yeah, I call it 'kiri bunshin'," the spiky haired youth said calmly, confusing the older man in the process.

"Why kiri bunshin? It doesn't have anything to do with mist," the man asked out of curiosity.

"I have my reasons so please stop interrogating me," Naruto stated, he was beginning to feel uncomfortable around this man who was trying to pry into his business.

"(sigh) sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. Anyway, you want to learn the art of genjutsu huh, well I'm not the best at it, however I have a couple of acquaintances, sorry I mean 'friends' that are really good at it," Kakashi said, causing the blonds eye to twitch slightly.

"I know what acquaintances means Kakashi-san," the blond told him with a hint of annoyance present in his voice, "it means someone you know, not your friends."

Kakashi blinked a couple of times in surprise at the blonds knowledge before giving the child an eye smile.

"Alright then brainiac, I'll take you to see one of them and we'll see if they're prepared to teach you a thing or two about genjutsu," the masked ninja told the blond while ruffling his hair in a friendly manner, though the blond didn't really appreciate this stranger getting so close to him.

Suddenly he felt a sense of vertigo as he felt his stomach getting twisted by an unseen force, the discomfort was so great that he couldn't keep his eyes open and as soon as the horrible feeling was gone, he emptied the contents of his stomach.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot how unpleasant it is to shunshin for the first time," Kakashi said calmly as he watched the whiskered child hold his stomach and vomit violently, "anyway, a bit of advice, learn how to cope with that feeling, it will become a common one if you become a ninja."

"You could've at least warned me you were going to do that," the blue eyed child said as he stood up on shaky legs.

"Yeah… I'm sorry, but right now I just want to find this acquaintance of mine," the silver haired Jōnin stated as he looked across the street and noticed a man fall out of a nearby eatery clutching his head in agony, "I take that back… she's in there," he deadpanned upon seeing the fleeing man.

"So then, what are we waiting for, let's see this acquaintance of yours," Naruto said as he crossed the street and headed towards the eatery.

"_Heh, he really does know what he wants and doesn't hesitate to get it… just like Kushina," _Kakashi thought to himself as he followed the blond at a sedate pace happily reminiscing about the people of his past.


	4. Chapter 4

Naruto quickly walked through the entrance of the small café that he had seen a man run out of and immediately started looking around. The first thing he noticed was the large number of flak jackets that were present in the small store, making his attempt at picking out the genjutsu user significantly harder than it should have been.

"Hello Kurenai, it's been a while since I last saw you, how are things?" Kakashi called out to a pair of young women sitting at the same table. The first one Naruto saw gave the Jōnin a glare with her vibrant red eyes as he walked up to the duo. She had long, wavy black hair that fell just past her shoulders and was held out of her eyes by a standard Konoha hitae-ate that was tied to her forehead. She was dressed in a normal Konoha flak jacket with a sleeveless, red shirt underneath, while her legs were covered by navy blue shinobi pants tied at the bottom with bandages. In her hand was a small glass of colourless liquid.

The other woman was only revealed to him when she turned around to face the approaching form of the silver haired man. She had purple hair tied up in style similar to a pineapple and like the other one, wore a Konoha hitae-ate around her forehead. This one however seemed to be looking at the man with an almost clueless expression on her face as she munched on a stick of dango. Her eyes were light brown and (to Naruto's surprise) lacked any form of pupil. However it was her dress sense that intrigued him most, a short, dark orange skirt, mesh that covered most of her body, a set of shin guards, a small pendant attached to a thick cord that hung loosely around her neck and a long, tan trenchcoat that stopped around her knees.

"Well, well, if it isn't Kakashi, what'cha doin here?" the purple haired woman asked cheerfully as she continued to eat her snacks.

"Actually Anko, I'm here to see Kurenai," the one eyed Jōnin said with his signature eye smile, before he started to sweat a little at the killing intent the dark haired woman started emitting.

"Look here Kakashi, I thought I made this clear, I want nothing to do with you, got it? Now leave before you can never have children," the red eyed beauty growled out at him.

"(sigh) look Kurenai, I'm here for something serious okay, so just calm down and here me out," the Jōnin stated calmly, causing the young woman's eyes to narrow at the declaration.

"You have one minute to convince me that you're serious."

"Um, excuse me, but he's here because of me," Naruto decided to inform the woman, resulting in her blinking a couple of times before looking at the blond and then turning back to the older man.

"I'm not babysitting some gaki Kakashi, find someone else," she said bluntly before proceeding to take a sip of her drink.

"I don't want you to babysit me," Naruto told her with his conviction clear in his voice, "I want you to train me."

"Heh, and why do you want me to train you? Kakashi is the expert on ninjutsu in this village," she asked him, glaring straight into his eyes, finding nothing but unflinching resolve in the azure orbs.

"Because I want to learn genjutsu, I want to learn the art of illusions," Naruto stated, shocking the women with his determination filled response.

"Huh? Why do you want to learn genjutsu? Ninjutsu is just as useful… and easier too," Anko asked through a mouthful of dango.

"See, I'm not the only one that thinks so," the Cyclops said with a cheery tone on his voice.

"You think I'm just going to decide to ditch genjutsu just because it's harder than ninjutsu? You two really don't know me if you think that'll put me off," the spiky haired blond informed them with a deadly serious tone.

"But why? Ninjutsu is easily ten times better than genjutsu," the purple haired women asked in complete confusion, "I mean, c'mon, the only reason a person would learn genjutsu is because they don't have the chakra for ninjutsu."

"That's not true!" Kurenai responded with a rage filled voice as she slammed her fists to the table, nearly shattering her glass in the process, "genjutsu is just as good, if not better than ninjutsu! Come on Naruto, I'll teach you the power of illusions," and with that said, the raven haired woman stormed out of the establishment, the young blond close behind.

What surprised the two ninjutsu users however, was when the boy turned to face them and let out a silent 'thank you'.

"Eh, Kakashi… did that kid just thank me?" Anko asked dumbfounded at the action.

"Heh, yeah, to think he's only five years old and already saw through your ruse," the cycloptic Jōnin said with an eye smile.

"Yeah… that gaki's going to become great one day, that much is certain," and with that said, Anko proceeded to start munching on her dango once again.

XXX XXX XXX

Naruto had to admit, the area the women took him to was definitely suited for technique training. It was a large open field with several large logs sticking up from the ground, a small pond that was obviously for learning to use suiton ninjutsu, several large rocks and trees surrounding the area, giving it a good level of privacy.

"Alright, what do you know of genjutsu," the ruby eyed woman asked seriously, a fire in her eyes… Naruto figured it was her resolve to prove Anko wrong about genjutsu.

"Genjutsu uses chakra to implant false perceptions within the opponent, whether it be a small noise to draw their attention or making them believe they can't move their limbs to subdue them, the uses of genjutsu are far ranging and can be very powerful… though it's better to use subtle ones so your enemy doesn't realise they're trapped in one," Naruto stated calmly, though he muttered the last part while caressing his chin, earning a smile off the young woman.

"Well, well, I have to say, I wasn't expecting you to give me such a complete answer, most Chūnin don't understand the true power of genjutsu and seem to believe that you shouldn't really use it against anyone higher than genin level… idiots," she muttered out the last part in disdain.

"Yeah… all you have to do is alter their perception of their own chakra and all of a sudden they can't disrupt their flow enough to break the illusion, and if you control your victims perception of pain as well then they're as good as dead unless they have someone else to release them from the illusion," the whiskered blond said with a pout,

"Although that's true, the fact of the matter is that no-one knows how to alter a person's perception of their own chakra, otherwise genjutsu would be a much more feared art than it is," the red eyed woman told him with a hint of depression at the fact.

"Well then, we'll just have to figure it out then!" the young blond said with a large grin and determined eyes, earning a blank stare off the black haired Chūnin.

"Did you just say 'we'?" she questioned calmly, earning a nod from the young child.

"Yeah, when you've finished teaching me, we can practice against each other until we figure out how to control people's perception of their own chakra."

"I see, well then, if we're going to figure that out then we should start your training now shouldn't we," the older woman said with a happy smile, finally finding someone that was as enthusiastic as her concerning genjutsu.

XXX XXX XXX

Sakura couldn't help herself. To think that earlier she couldn't get out of the village to meet her blond 'brother' as she had come to call him… she was certain he would be angry with her, after all, she was the one that practically begged him to help her train and SHE was the one that didn't show up… just what does he think of her now that she failed to keep her own schedule?

So here she was, laying face down on her bed, crying as she thought about the damage that she had just done to her relationship thanks to her lack of stealth skills… something she hadn't even thought of practicing.

"Calm down Sakura-chan, I'm sure Naruto-chan will understand once you explain the situation to him," Isako told her sobbing daughter calmly after entering the young girls bedroom, "now come on, let's just go to his place and wait for him now."

Hearing those comforting words from her mother, Sakura found herself calming down significantly as she felt Isako's warm hands helping her off her mattress, before helping her out of her room and down the stairs.

"Oh dear," the older woman called out sweetly as the pair reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Yes?" came an uncertain reply from one of the rooms off the hallway.

"If you're going to make a mess then clean up after yourself… or else," the emerald eyed woman said in a tone that sounded completely innocent and happy… but still scared you more than a bijū.

"Y-Yes dear," came the clearly nervous reply.

"Alright then, come on Sakura-chan, let's go and wait for Naruto-chan," and with a warm smile, the pair left the house on their way to Naruto's apartment.

XXX XXX XXX

Standing in the middle of the field, Naruto simply stood and listened to the older woman's short lecture on the art of genjutsu.

"Alright, the first thing I'm going to teach you is this, hand seals simply help you mould your chakra for a specific purpose, they are not needed to use a technique, however many people use what I like to call 'set' genjutsu, I even use them myself due to their ease of use. 'Set' genjutsu use a series of handseals to mould your chakra to implant a preconceived misconception in the targets mind, these are usually a very general illusion or one that simply draws out their fears, the disadvantage of these is that they are usually very easy to identify. However, what I am going to be teaching you is what I call 'freeform' genjutsu. The difference here is that I am not going to be teaching you any set jutsu, instead I'm going to teach you how to apply your chakra yourself, the different methods of adjusting a person's perception and finally, how to adapt your methods to deal with different types of people," the dark haired woman told him calmly, earning several nods off the spiky haired youth in the process, "did you actually understand that or are you just trying to look smart?"

"Of course I understood, you just said you'd be teaching me how to create my own illusions instead of relying on premade ones," the azure eyed child stated, earning a warm smile from the woman.

"Just checking, anyway, there are two main ways to cast a genjutsu, one is to trick their senses themselves by altering the chakra flow in the victims sensory organs to obscure the truth from them, or by using chakra to alter what their brain is telling them, the second method is the harder kind to administer since you have to possess a detailed understanding of the human brain simply to place a basic illusion in it," Kurenai said calmly, happy that the blond was paying so much attention to what she was saying about the art, "now it's time to teach you how to implant a genjutsu, first things first, you have to collect a VERY small amount of chakra, can you do that?"

"Hai sensei," he said militaristically as he proceeded to collect a miniscule amount of chakra from his system.

"Alright then, the second stage is to send that chakra at your target, you also have to make sure to keep a thin line of it connected to you otherwise you'll lose control over the chakra," she told him. Before she could say anything else, she found her vision blurring, before with a simple chakra spike, everything went back to normal, "well I have to admit that I wasn't expecting you to get it quite that quickly, normally you'd have to undergo some serious chakra control training in order to do that."

"Well I did spend three months learning how to control my chakra," the whiskered blond told her as he placed his hands behind his head and gave her a happy grin.

"Really? What exercise where you using?" Kurenai asked him with curiosity drenching her voice.

"Huh? What do you mean 'what exercise'? All I did was meditate and make my chakra move how I wanted it to," he told her with a blank look plastered on his face, slightly shocking the older woman.

"So you learned to control your chakra through meditation… normally ninja don't bother with that until they're at least Jōnin level, until then they rarely have the chakra capacity for that to be a concern," she told him calmly, earning a small look of understanding from the blond, "anyway, since you already understand this part of the technique, practice it until I tell you otherwise."

XXX XXX XXX

Naruto had to admit, it was getting boring. He had been proceeding to immerse her senses with chakra for so long, he had given up thinking about it and simply let his mind wander to everything that stood out. However, what he didn't know was that this was exactly what she was after, she wanted him to practice until he didn't have to think about it, doing so would allow him to concentrate completely on the illusion itself instead of implanting it.

"Alright, that's enough for today, it's getting late so go home and get some rest, I want you to be in top form tomorrow morning," Kurenai ordered him calmly, snapping the blonds' attention back to her.

"Okay sensei, oh, by the way… eh, would it be okay if I brought a friend with me tomorrow?" the whiskered child asked with a hint of nervousness in his voice.

"(sigh) honestly, I'm only training you as a fellow genjutsu enthusiast, I don't feel ready to teach more than one person yet," the wavy haired beauty told him quietly, causing the child to visibly deflate, "however, I'm sure Anko would love to help your friend get stronger, so if you want I could bring her with me tomorrow."

"Thanks Kurenai-sensei!" and all of a sudden the blond was fully reenergised and his mood brightened.

"It's alright, now go home and get some rest, you'll be starting a new exercise tomorrow," and with that said, the older woman vanished in a swirl of leaves, leaving the blond to make his way home… which took just a little longer than normal due to having to find somewhere he recognised first.

XXX XXX XXX

"It's getting really late Kaasan… do you think something happened to Naruto?" Sakura asked in concern after looking at the clock.

"I don't know Sakura-chan, I hope he just got carried away with his training and is running late… but I really don't know," Isako told the young girl, concerned about the boy herself.

Fortunately for the duo, the door opened almost as soon as they finished their little Question and Answer session, revealing the young blond with a strange expression on his face… almost like a combination of happiness and sadness.

"Naruto-chan are you alright?" the mother asked him, worried about his current expression.

"I'm sorry Sakura," he said quietly, surprising both occupants of the room, "I forgot that not everyone is as sneaky as me… but I did manage to get a sensei to help us," and all of a sudden both Naruto and Sakura's moods brightened, Naruto because he had managed to help out his little sister figure and Sakura because he didn't blame her for not showing up… plus the fact she was going to get proper training.

"That's nice to hear, so did your new sensei teach you anything today?" Isako asked him curiously as he walked over to the table to wait for his food.

"Yeah, she started teaching me the basics of genjutsu," the happy blond replied as he sat, calmly waiting for his meal.

"Huh? Isn't genjutsu illusions? Why isn't sensei teaching you about ninjutsu?" Sakura asked in confusion at the statement.

"Because I want to learn genjutsu, if you don't want to learn it then you don't have to, my sensei said she doesn't want to teach more than one person right now, so she's going to bring a friend to teach you," Naruto explained, once again surprising his 'little sister'.

"Wait you mean we're both going to be taught one on one," the young pinkette said in shock, receiving a nod of confirmation from her 'big brother'.

"Yep, Itadakimasu!" and with that said the blond dived into the plate that had just been placed in front of him with a vigour that only he could manage.

XXX XXX XXX

The next morning we find Naruto and Sakura walking towards his new training field together, after all, he didn't want her to be turned down just because she didn't arrive with him.

Of course by the time the duo arrived both Kurenai and Anko were standing waiting for them.

"So that's your friend huh, I wasn't quite expecting your friend to be a girl," Kurenai stated upon seeing the duo.

"So I get to pick on pinky… come on little girl, we're going to have some real fun," the purple haired woman said with a manic glint in her eye, scaring the youngest girl in the process.

"Anko, don't be too rough on her, she is only a child remember," the red eyed woman said seriously, resulting in the younger woman rolling her eyes at the statement.

"Yeah, yeah, now come on pinky do you want to be strong or not?" and without waiting for an answer the trenchcoat clad woman proceeded to leave the area, quickly followed by the young pinkette.

Once the duo were out of the clearing, Kurenai proceeded to turn towards the determined blond, before cracking a small smile.

"Alright Naruto, do what you practiced yesterday," she ordered him, earning a sigh of exasperation from the whiskered child as her senses blurred. Quickly dispelling the extremely simple illusion, she gave him a happy smile, "good, so you can do that without really thinking about it already. Well then, since we've established that you can do it that easily, it's time to teach you how to 'specialise' the illusion."

"Huh? What do you mean? Was I actually doing something noticeable before?" Naruto asked in confusion, earning a warm smile from the young woman.

"Yes you were, you might not have realised it but you were in fact making my senses blur, it isn't much but it is surprisingly dangerous, can you tell me why?" the woman asked him calmly, causing the blond to think it over.

"Well, if you cut them earlier they might think it's poison and not dispel it, that would mean they wouldn't be as precise as normal and might miss more often than normal," Naruto reasoned out after a few seconds of thinking.

"That's right," Kurenai said with a happy smile at the intelligence the boy was showing for his age, "now it's time to teach you how to change the blurring into something more defined."

Naruto immediately gave the woman his full attention as she began to explain the basics of interpreting the effects different chakra flows had on the senses and how to predict them.

XXX XXX XXX

Once Naruto had finished his training session, he felt deflated. Despite practicing changing his illusion nearly all day, he hadn't gotten far at all, sure Kurenai had told him that learning the art of freeform genjutsu usually took more than five years but that didn't make him feel any better about his failure, especially when she told him that she had to go on a mission tomorrow, meaning she couldn't train him then… though she did tell him to try and practice his exercise as much as he could.

Slowly opening his front door he was greeted by Isako preparing a meal and Sakura collapsed on his table… her body covered in dirt and scratches as she proceeded to drool in her exhaustion induced sleep.

"What happened to Sakura?" Naruto couldn't help but ask in confusion as he looked at the pink haired girl laying on her face.

"It turns out that that sensei you found for her is quite the slave driver and pushed her until she collapsed… she also brought her here when she was done… by the way, welcome home," Isako said from her place in the kitchen.

"Oh, okay, wait, how did she know to bring her here?" the whiskered blond asked after processing the information.

"I asked her the same question, she said that Hokage-sama told her to," the older pinkette told him calmly, earning a look of realisation from the boy.

"Alright, so should I wake Sakura up?" he asked wondering how long the meal would be.

"Not yet, just wait a little bit and let her get some rest for now," Isako told him, earning a nod from the young blond as he accepted her request.

Sitting quietly, Naruto proceeded to practice altering his chakra flow outside of his body in hopes of improving on where he left off with Kurenai, though he was eventually broken out of his attempt by the meal placed in front of him.

"Itadakimasu!" came his enthusiastic response as he dug in and Isako woke Sakura from her nap.

"Huh? Where am I?" came the younger pinkette's confused response to being awoken.

"Don't worry, you're back at my place," Naruto told her between mouthfuls of his food, surprising the girl in the process.

"Huh? What's about Anko-sensei? Where is she?" came the girls shocked reply to the information.

"Calm down Sakura-chan, your new sensei dropped you off here after you collapsed from exhaustion, so are you going to continue training with her or not?" Isako asked, hoping that her daughter hadn't been too traumatised by the obviously psychotic woman.

"Huh? What do you mean by that? Of course I'm going to keep training, I'm not going to just give up because sensei's tough on me! I'll just have to get strong enough to keep up with her if that's the case!" the young girl stated with firm resolution.

"That's the spirit Sakura, don't let that crazy lady bring you down!" Naruto cheered out, earning a strange look off the pink haired girl.

"How did you know she was crazy?" came Sakura's question.

"From what I've seen of her and what sensei told me of her, she's gotta be crazy," the blond answered with a smile, causing his 'little sister' to laugh out loud.

"Now I know you two are having fun but don't you think you should eat your food before it goes cold Sakura-chan?" Isako asked her with a warm smile, causing the young girl to blush in embarrassment before devouring her meal faster than she had ever done before, earning a blank stare off her mother.

"What? If I don't eat I'll be eaten by sensei's snakes," the emerald eyed girl said with a hint of fear in her voice as she remembered her 'test' earlier that day.

"What sort of training does your sensei do?" the mother asked in concern.

"Hard training… and scary training," Sakura said quietly, not prepared to relive her skill test if she could help it.

"Well, I'm tired, so I'll see ya tomorrow Isako-san," the whiskered youth said as he got up from his position at the table and made his way to his bedroom.

"I guess he's right, come on Sakura-chan, if your finished then we'll go home now, I'll wash the dishes tomorrow," and with that said, the pink duet proceeded to leave the apartment, remembering to lock the front door behind them, before making their way home.

XXX XXX XXX

The next morning Naruto couldn't help but let out a sigh of exasperation as he arrived at his new training grounds. The problem he had today was simple, he didn't have a partner to practice his genjutsu on like he did yesterday… then again.

With a quick set of handseals and an indigo flame, a perfect copy of him appeared out of thin air and stood, ready to be practiced on by the original.

And that was how his day passed, with him placing an attempt at an illusion on the fake, who would in turn tell him what it did before they tried again and kept repeating the cycle… with a quick lunch break, some warm ups and the occasional spar with the bunshin, spacing the sessions apart.

XXX XXX XXX

Sakura was beginning to regret her decision to come today… but then again if she hadn't she would've never had the pleasure of being chased by a giant snake that wanted to eat her whole… wait that was WHY she regretted coming.

"Come on pinky! Put some effort into it!" came the cheerful cry from above her as she proceeded to put even more effort into running, only to find that the snake simply became equally as fast.

Despite what she displayed on the outside, Anko was beginning to admire the girls determination… not many would return after her initial skill test, but this girl did and the look on her face told her everything she needed to know… Sakura was not going to give up.

However, despite her determination, her physical conditioning was pretty poor… then again she was only five years old so that was to be expected but despite that Anko decided that she should work on the three S's… strength, speed and stamina.

The speed and stamina were simple, just make her run from one of her snakes for awhile, that always worked for the simple reason that with a snake chasing you, your fight or flight instincts kicked in, pumping your adrenaline into your muscles and letting you flee for longer than normal.

Once Anko was happy with her physical conditioning, then she would teach the girl how to control her chakra… and hopefully increase her reserves at the same time, before she would even begin to teach her tai or ninjutsu… but if Anko had it her way, the girl would be genin level by the time she even started the academy… then again that depended entirely on the girls talent so she wasn't getting her hopes too high on that one.


	5. Chapter 5

There she was, standing in the middle of a clearing, her ruby eyes scanning the area for anything out of place while her other senses worked overtime in an attempt to pick out her enemy.

All of a sudden a set of roots erupted from the ground, pinning her limbs in place, before she spiked her chakra significantly, breaking free of the illusion and being greeted by a weak punch to the stomach, though the placement of the strike caused her to keel over in pain. That was one thing she knew about her opponent, he was precise, he never wasted a move and always aimed his strikes at pressure points, causing his weak attacks to inflict serious pain. The worst part however was that she couldn't tell if he truly was that precise or if he was simply creating the illusion of hitting her pressure points so perfectly… the pain was simply too great to focus on dispelling a genjutsu.

That precision also applied itself to his illusions, the amount of detail he would include made even his most obvious ones seem surprisingly realistic. The most surprising part about it all however, was that he had only been learning the art for thirteen months.

Finally recovering from the pain, she jumped back, narrowly avoiding the follow up strike to her face and preparing herself for the child's next move. Staring intently on the young blond, she was caught off guard when a spectral entity that looked surprisingly similar to the Kyūbi no Kitsune that attacked Konoha six and a half years ago, flew at her from her opponent.

Quickly realising that the entity was nothing more than a genjutsu, she quickly dispelled the illusion, only to find herself getting struck by a small stone. Recoiling from the hidden attack, she barely had any time to counter the blonds charge, her foot flying straight through the blond as he dissolved into a medley of flowers.

Shock filled her mind as her knee was stuck from behind, forcing her to collapse as she suddenly found a sharp blade poised at her throat.

"Ne, Nai-sensei, how did I do?" Naruto asked her with a little bit of pride at being capable of bringing her to her knees.

"You did very well Naruto… to think you could actually beat me even with my restrictions," the crimson eyed woman said with more pride than the child.

"Yeah, but I'm sure that if you had used anything more than taijutsu I would've lost," the whiskered child said seriously as he thought over the 'battle' they had just had.

"Perhaps, but you're forgetting the difference in our ages, I'm a lot older and more experienced than you, simply being capable of beating me when I'm only allowed to use taijutsu proves that you're far beyond your age in skill," Kurenai told him calmly after he removed his blade from her throat.

"Yeah… but I'm still no match for you," Naruto admitted with a warm smile spread across his lean face.

"Perhaps in tai and ninjutsu, but you're talent in genjutsu is simply amazing, it took me more than three times longer than you to reach that level in freeform illusions and unlike you, I had already had training prior to learning them," she told him with a strange mix of pride and jealousy in her voice.

"So then, what's next?" the young genjutsu user asked her calmly, he didn't expect the answer he got.

"Nothing… I've taught you everything I know about genjutsu, all that's left is for you to practice and improve yourself. I would teach you some taijutsu but you're already talented in that and all you really need to do is get stronger physically before you can be considered a dangerous hand to hand combatant… I would begin teaching you the basics of ninjutsu but I'm not that skilled in that area of combat and I don't think you actually want to learn it either, so I'm not going to teach you any… that just leaves you to practice on your own," the wavy haired woman told him with a sad smile.

"I see… so I take it I won't be seeing you again huh?" he asked her while trying his best not to cry at the idea of never seeing her again, he had grown close to the woman that shared his passion over the year they had known each other.

"No, I'll try to visit you once in a while but I'm supposed to be starting a new long term mission soon, I'm supposed to be acting as both an instructor and guard of the Hyūga heiress so I won't have much time to see you but I promise I will see you when I can," the wavy haired woman told him with a sad smile.

"That seems a little… strange, why isn't the Hyūga heir being trained by a Hyūga?" Naruto asked when he heard the information.

"Apparently, she isn't living up to her father's expectations and he's decided to spend his time training his younger daughter instead," she told him with a small amount of sadness present in her eyes at the idea of a father deserting his daughter… she remembered that her father was the reason she was still alive, stopping her from facing the Kyūbi six years ago… just thinking about it caused her to feel the pain of losing him again.

"How old is she? And what sort of training has she failed at," the azure eyed blond asked in an attempt at possessing a complete picture of the situation.

"(sigh) she's the same age as you and she's failing at learning the Hyūga taijutsu style," the ruby eyed ninja informed him, before feeling something she had never felt from him before… sheer, unadulterated, Killing Intent.

"You mean to tell me that this bastard hasn't even tried to see if she's better at nin or genjutsu and has already called her a failure?! What's so special about this taijutsu anyway?!" the young blond raged, shocking the woman with both his analysis and language.

"I know it doesn't seem right but it's a clan matter and because of that no-one is allowed to interfere without permission from the clan head," she told him sadly, "and as for what's so special about the Hyūga taijutsu… it is possibly the most feared in the elemental nations and they are VERY proud of it and the fact that it can't be completed without their kekkei genkai."

"It still seems horrible that this guy would abandon his daughter just because she's not as strong as he wants, especially without giving her a real chance," the visibly calmer child said with his arms crossed.

"I know but as I said before, there's nothing we can do about it, that's why I'm accepting the mission, so I can at the very least give her someone who cares about her," the Chūnin said with a small smile adorning her face.

"Can you promise me something Nai-sensei?"

"What do you want me to promise you?" Kurenai asked him upon hearing the request.

"That you'll do your best to make her the strongest Hyūga in history… and without this stupid taijutsu of theirs," came his serious request, slightly shocking her with his wording.

"I promise I will do my best, but I can't promise that she'll become the strongest Hyūga in history."

"That's all I wanted to hear… so when do you start this mission?" the whiskered child asked her curiously.

"Heh, I'm supposed to start today but they accepted that I needed to see you so I've still got another two hours before I need to be there," the black haired woman informed him calmly.

"I see, well do you want me to come along to give them an idea of how good you are at teaching?" he asked her hoping to do something for the woman that had helped his skills so much.

"No thank you Naruto, I'd rather not introduce you to such an arrogant clan if I can help it."

"Well then, shouldn't you prepare yourself to meet these assholes? I know you have two hours but who knows how they'll expect you to act if they're as bad as you say," the blond asked hoping that she'd be alright around these people.

"I guess you're right, I just wanted to see my favourite apprentice before meeting my new one," she said with a happy smile as she ruffled his hair affectionately.

"I'm you're only apprentice," he deadpanned in response to the statement.

"Exactly," came her cheeky response drawing a small smile off her young student, "but seriously, I will miss teaching you and I doubt my new student will be as enthusiastic about genjutsu as you."

"Heh, well it would be hard to find someone more enthusiastic than me… anyway I guess I'll see you later Nai-sensei," the young child said with a hint of sadness present in his voice.

"Yeah, I'll see you later Naruto," and with that said, the woman left in a swirl of leaves, leaving the blond to do what he wanted.

"(sigh) I guess all I can do is practice," and with that muttered out, Naruto proceeded to practice combining genjutsu with mist flames. The main difficultly with combining the two was simple, you had to figure out how to implant the illusion on reality instead of on someone's senses, a significantly harder thing to do. Naruto of course wasn't an idiot and despite the problem he faced, he had already figured out the basics of applying illusions to reality and only really needed practice… just like he needed practice with his new 'toy'.

Effortlessly lighting the indigo flame of his ring, he put his hand inside his pocket and pulled out a small indigo box attached to a chain, before placing his flame in a recess in the small cube.

XXX XXX XXX

Quietly opening his front door, Naruto wasn't surprised to find his apartment abandoned. Recently Isako had been asked to work longer hours due to the library being short staffed after one of their older librarians retired and as such, Naruto found himself on his own more often than before. He was grateful to Isako for everything she did for him… especially teaching him how to cook, sure he wasn't the best but at least he was capable of feeding himself.

Walking over to his kitchen, the young blond started to collect ingredients for a simple meal before he proceeded to prepare two small meals… one for him and one for Sakura, however his mind wasn't focused on cooking right now, instead wandering over what he was going to do now that he was no longer going to be taught by Kurenai.

Suddenly the door was slammed open and an exhausted Pinkette slouched through the door. As normal she was covered in dirt, scratches and cuts, while her face was covered by a small smile… that is before she collapsed onto his sofa and passed out.

Letting out a small sigh of exasperation, Naruto continued to prepare the meals, simply letting his 'little sister' rest until he was finished.

As soon as he had finished making the food, he placed two plates on his small table and walked over to the pink haired girl and placing a single finger on her forehead.

"Imōto… wake up or I'm going to eat your food as well," the spiky haired youth said quietly, not at all surprised when the girls emerald coloured eyes snapped open and she almost bolted upright… only being stopped by the azure eyed blonds finger, "dinners on the table," and with that said, he removed his finger from her forehead and proceeded to sit in his place and start eating.

"Hey! That's not fair! I've just been training with a psycho and you threaten to eat my food as well!" came the indignant response from the young pinkette as she sat down opposite the blond, growing even angrier when he suddenly took something from her plate and ate it before she could react, "DAMMIT NARUTO! I NEED THAT FOOD!"

"Well I did warn you," was his calm reply, before he ducked under a fist that would've smashed his face in otherwise, "now there's no need to get violent Imōto, just eat your food and I won't be able to steal it now will I?"

"YOU DIDN'T GIVE ME A CHANCE TO EAT IT!"

"Haha, so how was your day? Is Anko still making you run from her pets?" Naruto asked her, slightly calming the atmosphere in the process.

"(sigh) no… she's started me on chakra control exercises now, something about learning to control it and increase how much I have," the young girl admitted as she stuffed her face and stared at the whiskered blonds' hands, just waiting for him to try stealing from her again, "what about you? How's your training with Kurenai going?"

"Today she told me that she wasn't going to teach me anymore," he replied, shocking the pinkette in the process.

"What?! Why?" was all she could ask him in her current state of mind.

"She said it was because I've already learned everything she has to teach me and from now on, all I can do is improve on my own," the response threw Sakura completely, if what he said was true then he was already strong enough to make himself stronger without any help at all… something she was FAR from being.

Just as she was about to respond to her 'brothers' statement, they heard the door open. Looking towards the now open entrance, both were unsurprised (but still happy) to see Isako, though from her body language it was obvious that she wouldn't be staying long due to the obvious lack of energy she had.

"Don't worry Kaasan, if you're tired then just go home, I'll be fine," Naruto said before she could open her mouth, earning a grateful smile off the older woman,

"Thank you Naru-chan… I promise I'll find some time to speak with you more later," the older pinkette said with a sad smile as she let her regret at not being able to keep the blond company consume her, "come on Sakura-chan, I'm really tired so let's just go home now."

"Hai Kaasan, see ya later Aniki," Sakura called out as she walked over to her mother and follow her out of the apartment.

Once the duo had disappeared, Naruto proceeded to lock the door before pulling out his small cube and looking at it. It was simply incredible that in modern times, everyone thought it was nothing more than some old fashion, same with the rings. He still couldn't get it out of his mind when he noticed his box, sitting in a jewellers next to a single, storm attribute ring… and the most amazing part was simply how cheap they were.

It still surprised him how no-one had rediscovered the rings powers before him, then again, in order to use a ring you had to have one that matched your flame type otherwise nothing would happen and even if you did have matching flame types, if you didn't have a 'dying will' when wearing it then it wouldn't light, which considering that most people with a dying will are ninja and barely any ninja wear jewellery, gave Naruto a plausible answer as to why no-one had ever lit the flame before.

The boxes could also be easily mistaken as nothing special due to the ornate markings that covered them and the fact that they could only be opened by the matching type of ring flame. Naruto was definitely amazed by the number of coincidences he had occur in his life... from finding the book that allowed him to discover the power of the ring he had been given earlier, to the 'box weapon' he had found for sale, all in all he had to admit that he was quite possibly one of the luckiest people alive… which obviously meant that the curse of bad luck the ring had wasn't as bad as it was supposed to be… or it had already had 666 instances of bad luck and he was being blessed by the legendary 'one instance of extremely good luck' that was supposed to occur.

Naruto soon got those thoughts out of his head, it was useless to ponder the past except to make sure you don't repeat your mistakes and with that in mind, the young blond began to think over what he was going to do from now on… his box sitting on his lap as he let his mind wander.

XXX XXX XXX

"Alright, you can rest now," a familiar woman with purple hair shouted at Sakura as she proceeded to run up a tree, her feet gluing to the bark with no difficulty as the pinkette breathed heavily.

"No, I can keep going," was the young girls response, earning a harsh glare off the older woman.

"Now look here pinky, if you don't rest now then you can find a new sensei," Sakura froze. Why was her sensei threatening to leave her?

"What!? Why?" she asked in shock as she stopped running.

"Why? Because I told you to rest for a reason, unlike your physical training were you were pushed to your limits during the day and rested at night, with this one if you are pushed to exhaustion then you could easily be put out of commission for a week so when I tell you to rest, you rest, understand?" the young woman explained, causing the younger girl to look down in defeat before slowly walking down the tree and resting at the base.

"Cheer up, it's not like you're not going to be doing anything, just because you're resting doesn't mean there's nothing you can do," the small smirk on the woman's face told the young girl everything she needed to know, "now it's time to teach you something that doesn't require any real effort… handseals."

"Huh? What're handseals?" came the clueless response from the six year old, causing the older woman to roll her eyes.

"Handseals are what a ninja uses to help mould their chakra to create the effects known as jutsu… sure it's possible to bypass them but most don't have the control to do so," Anko explained to her, earning a set of wide eyes off the child, "now come on, let's get you started."

XXX XXX XXX

Kurenai found it hard to digest what she had just been told by the Hyūga head, 'do what you want with her', she still couldn't believe that a father could be that cold towards his own daughter.

The girl herself was currently looking terrified as she observed her, taking note of her small, nimble frame that wasn't suited for the rigid movements of the Jūken style she was being forced to learn. She had short, dark blue hair and soft lavender eyes that held none of the typical Hyūga composure but were filled with kindness and compassion instead.

"So what do you want to learn?" the ruby eyed Chūnin asked out of nowhere, shocking the young Hyūga with the question, it was one that she had never been asked before.

"W-what?" was the only word that the girl managed to let out as she tried to process the idea of being allowed to choose what she wanted to learn.

"(sigh) do you want to learn tai, nin, gen, iryō or Fūinjutsu?" the wavy haired woman asked hoping that the girl had given it at least some thought, though she noticed the small flinch the girl made at the term Fūinjutsu, fully understanding why it would cause such a reaction from the girl.

"I-I-I don't know, I've never been asked before," the young girl replied with averted eyes, causing Kurenai to remember the sort of training the girl had been given before.

"Well then, I guess all I can really do is explain what each area does before letting you choose, so let's go somewhere more comfortable," and so the black haired Chūnin took her new student to the very place she first met her first student.

XXX XXX XXX

Sakura had to admit, she couldn't remember ever being this… energetic after a training session with Anko, but she didn't expect it to be like that forever. But at least this time she'd be capable of staying awake while her Aniki made her food.

Calmly walking up to his front door, she was shocked when she noticed something that had NEVER happened before… the door refused to open. Quickly thinking about it, the only conclusion she could draw was that he hadn't come back from his solo training yet, so she decided to do what seemed normal for this sort of situation to her… she waited… and waited… and waited.

"Sakura-chan? What are you doing in the hallway?" asked the familiar voice of her mother as she arrived to see the young girl sitting on the floor.

"Kaasan? What are you doing here already?" the emerald eyed six year old asked in surprise, shocking her mother by the statement.

"What do you mean 'already'? And why aren't you inside?" Isako asked with concern drenching her voice.

"Well Aniki isn't back yet so I thought you were early," the younger pinkette stated as her heart began to beat faster than normal… if her mother wasn't early then, just how long had she been waiting here?

Isako started to panic as she rushed to the door and using the key she had been given so long ago, proceeded to open the apartment and immediately started to search for her 'son'. It didn't take long for her to notice a neatly written note on the table, which she quickly began to read, her eyes widening more with each passing sentence.

"DAMMIT! THAT IDIOT!" the suddenly increase in volume shocked the younger of the two as she watched her mother storm out of the apartment with a speed she had never seen before. But if there was one thing Anko's training had done for her so far, it was make her a LOT faster so she wasn't just going to let the woman get away without explaining things to her.

XXX XXX XXX

Sarutobi Hiruzen was doing what he usually did at this time of night… complete paperwork… just like he had been doing for the past twelve hours, when he was distracted by his door suddenly flying open to reveal a furious librarian holding some sort of letter.

"(sigh) what can I do for you Haruno-san?" he asked calmly, curious as to what was making the woman so angry, only for the letter to get shoved in his face. Quietly taking the piece of paper, the aged leader started to read it, before he suddenly started to rush through it as Sakura entered the room in pursuit of her mother.

"TENZO!" and with the old man's call a masked, armour wearing ninja appeared before him, "prepare a search party… Uzumaki Naruto has left Konoha."

XXX XXX XXX

It had been a couple of hours since the Hokage received the note left by the blond and the tracking squad had just stopped in a small clearing. The squad consisted of the masked ninja from the Hokage's office, a middle aged woman with spiky hair, slitted eyes and a couple of tattoos adorning her cheeks, a long haired man wearing a Konoha hitae-ate around his forehead and white eyes, a man that wore a pair of sunglasses and a high collar coat that hid the lower half of his face and last but not least, a giant black wolf with an eye patch.

Standing in the middle of the clearing, the wolf took several sniffs before it's face scrunched in confusion, "his scent ends here," it suddenly stated, earning several confused looks off the rest of the team.

"What? What do you mean it ends here?" the spiky haired woman asked in shock as she proceeded to take several sniffs herself, before she too scrunched her face in confusion.

"Aburame-senpai, is it possible that the child is using genjutsu to hide his presence? He was being trained by Kurenai until earlier today," the animal masked ANBU asked the one wearing the sunglasses.

"Although there is a slight possibility, it is unlikely, since my kikaichū cannot detect any chakra in the immediate area," the one referred to as 'Aburame' stated a crisp monotone.

"I will admit that my Byakugan isn't picking up anything out of the ordinary either… it would appear as though we've completely lost the trail," the long haired man stated clearly.

"Dammit… this is bad, when Hokage-sama finds out we couldn't retrieve the Kyūbi's vessel he will be pissed," the slitted eyed woman said with a hint of fear in her voice… all of them new just how important the child was to the Sandaime, both as a ninja with nearly infinite potential and a source of cheer when he felt down.

"It would appear as though all we can do right now is return to Konoha and report our failure," the ANBU stated with his head held low before the group vacated the area.

After several minutes, the air began to waver as the clearing was filled with strange purple slugs coated in indigo fire… and sitting at the base of a tree with wide eyes was a familiar whiskered blond.

It was easy to identify what emotion was playing through his head as he sat in silence, not a single muscle (that wasn't vital) moving as he thought over what he had just heard… he was the vessel of the beast that nearly destroyed Konoha six years ago. It explained so much, the looks he received from so many villagers, the special interest the Hokage gave him and his enormous chakra reserves.

It was at this point that his mind was at its weakest and with the opportunity in its grasp, the beast finally succeeded in doing what it had been trying to do for so long.

It took a little while for the young blond to finally pay enough attention to his surroundings to realise that he was no longer in the clearing but some large room filled with pipes and a large, wrought Iron gate with a small piece of paper covering whatever lock kept the area closed off from him.

"**So this is my vessel… if it wasn't for your skill with illusions I would consider you a mere insect,"** boomed a voice from beyond the gate as a set of giant red eyes and pearly white fangs glowed in the darkness.

"So you're the Kyūbi… to what do I owe the pleasure," Naruto asked it with faint sarcasm noticeable in his tone.

"**Oh trust me, I've been trying to drag your scrawny ass down here for quite some time, however your mind is more power than I anticipated… you're only here due to a moment of weakness courtesy of discovering about me,"** the giant beast stated with a malicious grin as it analysed the still seated blond.

"Heh, and why have you been trying to speak with me? Are you scared of this?" and suddenly the blond held his hand up to reveal his indigo dying will flame, currently ignited in the palm of his hand, causing the fox to give a small, nervous gulp at the display, "I'll take that as a yes… let me guess, you know that this flame can cleanse evil aura's and you… are nothing more than an evil aura."

"**Heh, you certainly do know how to turn a situation to your favour but before you decide to try and cleanse me, I have a small proposition for you,"** that piqued the blonds interest, what could the Kyūbi possibly be trying to pull?

"And may I enquire as to the nature of this proposition?"

"**The nature of the proposition is nothing more than a… unique, training experience, one that you cannot do without my help."**

"And what would the benefits of this training be?"

"**Let me put it this way, if you complete this training, you're power will easily grow tenfold and you won't be borrowing any of this strength from me… so what do you say? Oh and before I forget, there is no guarantee that you'll survive this training," **the bijū added hastily at the end.

"And what if I refuse this training?"

"**Heh, you can't,"** came the foxes smirking reply as he suddenly felt himself getting thrust out of his mind, before he suddenly began to feel a burning sensation as he somehow hit the floor and rolled onto his stomach.

Slowly pushing himself up, there were only two words that escaped his mouth, "oh shit."

XXX XXX XXX

Back in the clearing, Naruto began to stand from his seated position, as he gave several experimental stretches before opening his now crimson, slitted eyes.

"**Heh, enjoy your stay in hell, Uzumaki Naruto."**


	6. Chapter 6

Among all of the famous shinobi in the world, there was one that stood out as being one of the strongest of the strongest. He was one of the legendary three ninja's that was trained by the Sandaime Hokage and went on to train the Yondaime… mainly because he enjoyed his freedom and did not want to get stuck with a desk job. His name was Jiraiya, also known as the 'Gama Sennin'. He possessed long white hair that was tied into a ponytail that reached his hips, while two bangs framed his face that was decorated with two red lines that ran vertically from the bottom of his eyes.

He was wearing his usual attire of dull green shinobi pants and a short kimono that showed off the mesh shirt he wore underneath, while his feet were protected from rough ground by a pair of wooden geta. Over his kimono he wore a sleeveless red trenchcoat with a pair of yellow circles on the front of his shoulders, while a large red scroll covered his back. Like many other ninja he wore a hitae-ate around his forehead, though the pair of horn like protrusions and the kanji for oil that were present on it were not normal for any village.

Normally this legendary ninja would be sitting in either a bar or a whorehouse attempting to pick up a woman for the night… and normally he would have no success either, but today something else had caught his eye, a person that obviously possessed incredible skill in the art of genjutsu if both the subtlety and strength of the henge they wore was any indication. Even with his beyond average perception skills and a capacity for detecting chakra that he obtained over time, he was still barely capable of even detecting the strangers disguise and the fact that he couldn't dispel it no matter how hard he tried told him everything he needed to know, this person would be deadly in combat.

Despite the strangers skill, there was one thing that Jiraiya simply couldn't understand about them, the fact that their henge simply looked so out of place in the small town… sorry, make that the entire country, meaning that the only reason they didn't draw any attention was because of a secondary genjutsu that affected observers minds and stopped them from taking notice of the unusual attire, which as far as Jiraiya was concerned, made the henge pointless to begin with.

The strangers henge was that of a young man, approximately twenty to twenty five years old, with a light blue hair tied into a very short, pineapple style ponytail, while his hair possessed two zig zag like partings that created a pair of bangs that framed his face. He was wearing a strange blue jacket with red lining, decorated with yellow fabric covering his shoulders and red straps with yellow outlines that were obviously for closing the jacket, plain white pants, brown boots that went half way up his shins and a red shirt underneath the open blue jacket. His hands were covered by a set of black gloves and several rings.

Calmly following the stranger while making sure to remain undetected, Jiraiya couldn't help but raise an eyebrow as the man walked into a random bar and simply sat at the counter, prompting the Gama Sennin to take a seat at a small table and focus his hearing on the strange man as he began to speak with the young woman that was serving drinks.

"One double Vodka please," came a perfectly calm request from the man as his voice gave off an impression of maturity and grace.

"Oh, um, of course," the young barmaid said as she processed the strangers appearance after taking notice of his voice, "so, where do you come from? That isn't the sort of clothing that gets sold around here?" she asked as she prepared the young man's drink.

"I come from one of the Western Continents, I was sent with a crew on an expedition but our ship was caught up in a Maelstrom before we could even see any land, I think that I was the only one lucky enough to get washed ashore after the storm," the blue haired individual flowed off his tongue.

"So did you have to learn our language from scratch? If you did then you're very impressive," the young woman enquired as she passed a small glass over to the man.

"Fortunately there were only a few minor differences between our languages so I haven't really had to learn much, if my guess is correct then both our civilisations probably started from one group that split into two after forming the basis of its language," the strangely dressed man informed her before downing the contents of his glass and passing it back to the woman, "are you married? If so then who is the lucky man?"

"No, I'm not, what made you think that?" the barmaid asked as she proceeded to clean the glass.

"Sorry, it's just that ring you're wearing," the blue clad man stated with a hint of awkwardness in his tone.

"Oh, no this is just a family heirloom," she stated as she held her hand up, allowing Jiraiya to get a good look at the ring. It possessed an intricate design while four claw like prongs kept a dark sapphire in place.

"I see… I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions," the calm young man said before the Gama Sennin noticed the presence of a genjutsu being placed on the barmaid, "now, could I get a pint of beer? any will do."

"Alright then, one pint of beer coming right up," and with that said the young woman proceeded to dispense some beer into a typical pint glass, though Jiraiya was sharp enough to notice the young woman's hand removing her ring and dropping it in the glass, "there you go," and with no indication that anything was wrong, the young woman handed the glass over to the blue haired man who quickly downed the bitter liquid before placing the empty glass back on the counter.

"Ahhh… thank you for that, anyway, I'm sorry but I've got a caravan to catch in ten minutes so I have to go now," and with that said the blue clad stranger stood up from his stool and placed a couple of notes on the counter, "keep the change."

"Thank you, come back if you're ever in town again," the young barmaid said with a smile.

"Will do," and with that and a wave, the stranger left the building, a certain white haired man hot on his trail.

Not long after leaving the bar, the blue haired man moved into a back alley before spitting out a familiar ring and placing it on his only unoccupied finger, his left pinkie.

"Heh, and they said genjutsu was useless," the strange man muttered with a hint of amusement in his voice before he started to space out as he started to make his way out of the alley, the legendary shinobi still hot on his trail.

"You know, stealing a family heirloom isn't a particularly nice thing to do, especially when it belongs to such a nice woman," Jiraiya decided to call out, snapping the stranger out of his thoughts.

"And neither is following someone like that… now may I ask why you've been spying on me?" the blue haired thief questioned the older man as he turned around displaying no surprise at the man's presence.

"How should I put this… you're henge may be good, but it isn't perfect," the white haired ninja stated seriously, "now why did you steal that ring?"

"I have my reasons."

"Money?"

"No, I have no concern with material wealth, it is simply a case of there being more to this ring than meets the eye," the 'foreigner' stated with a calm demeanour, causing the Gama Sennin's eyes to narrow in suspicion.

"And what makes that ring so special?"

"Heh, why should I tell you the specifics? Now, I believe I've already said too much, Sayonara Oil-san," and before the legendary ninja could react, the strangers form simply dispersed, leaving the red coated man alone in the alley and no longer capable of sensing the stranger at all.

"Shit!"

XXX XXX XXX

"_**That man certainly was skilled to detect your illusion child," **_came a voice within the man's head.

"_Indeed… though I do believe I could have at least held my own against him if I had fought," _the blue haired man thought back as he walked along one of the roads outside the small town.

"_**So when are you going to drop that henge? Or are you planning on remaining a Daemon Spade impersonator forever?"**_

"_Heh, you know as well as I do that I only disguised myself as him to make starting a conversation with the ring bearer easier,"_ and with that thought, the man's appearance shimmered out of existence, revealing a spiky haired youth with blond hair and a set of whisker marks. He was wearing black businessman trousers held up by a simple black belt with a rectangular steel buckle, a simple white shirt, a black tie that hung loosely around his neck, a high collared black trenchcoat with crimson lining, a pair of black gloves and a pair of tall black leather boots with white laces. However, despite everything, it was his right eye that stood out the most, its red iris decorated with the kanji for one instead of a pupil, while his other eye was a natural azure blue.

"_**And starting a conversation as Rokudo Mukuro would be harder how?"**_

"_Tell me, how did my conversation as Daemon Spade start?"_

"_**By her asking… about your clothes," **_came the 'I can't believe I didn't see that earlier' tone of the booming voice in his head.

"_My point exactly… now if you don't stop questioning my decisions I will purify you, or are you forgetting that I am still angry with you for sending me to hell?" _Naruto threatened the fox in his head.

"_**Well considering you got both combat experience and that eye from that I think you should be more grateful for me letting you train there like that,"**_ the giant kitsune said indignantly.

"_It is because of that that you are still alive right now, if I hadn't gotten this eye then I would have destroyed you as soon as I returned to my body after all, are you forgetting that I was forced to fight my way through not one but six different planes of hell to get back?" _came the noticeably angry voice of the young blond.

"_**Sorry, like I told you before, I didn't know there was more than one hell and I thought you would be happy enough just getting the chance to train somewhere like that."**_

"_And what gave you that impression?"_

"_**It was a unique training experience, I mean how many people can say that they have literally trained in hell?"**_

"_And how many want to be able to say that?"_

"_**Come on, can't you cut me some slack here? I mean sure you were forced to experience hell but you became stronger in the end because of it."**_

"_I already am cutting you some slack and there was an even bigger chance that I would die down there than make my way through it, so shut up or I will purify you," _Naruto stated, wanting to finish the conversation before his anger at the beast got the better of him.

"_**Before I shut up, are you planning on returning to that worthless village yet?"**_

"_Watch your tongue furball, that 'worthless village' is my home and I will not tolerate you bad mouthing it like that," _the whiskered blond thought dangerously as he lit one of his rings to further emphasise his point.

"_**Fine then, will you be returning to Konoha now that you've finally managed to collect the last of the Hell rings?"**_

"_That was the purpose of my travels so far, I will admit that I've collected as many rings and box weapons as I could find but ensuring that the Hellrings were all in my possession was the primary purpose of this trip," _he admitted as his anger died down once again.

"_**Heh, I wonder how they will take your return after leaving them with such little information and evading them for the best part of five years."**_

"_I don't know, but if worst comes to worst then I'm pretty sure I can at least escape if I need to,"_ the blond thought in reply to the Kyūbi's curiosity, _"now I think I'll try and find somewhere to sleep for the night before it gets too dark," _and with that in mind the young genjutsu user proceeded to search for somewhere to stay, whether it be a Hotel, Inn or a clearing where he could set up a camp.

XXX XXX XXX

Naruto had to admit, the Inn he had managed to find was a nice little place, cheap too. After a simple meal he had proceeded to go to the room he had hired and simply lie on his bed and read one of the many books he had collected throughout his travels, more specifically, one that dealt with the history of the Vongola Familiga, it was also the book where he had adopted his disguises from… mainly because he couldn't enter places like bars without pretending to be someone else and unfortunately for him, bars tended to be the best places to gather information.

Out of all the former members of the Vongola Familiga, two stood out to him, the first being the man named Daemon Spade, the first person that was known to be skilled enough to make his illusions a reality, and the other, a man named Rokudo Mukuro, another person that specialised in illusions, however what caught Naruto's attention was his right eye, for the simple reason being that it was the same eye he now possessed courtesy of his trip through hell.

It was something that surprised him to no end, the fact that he wasn't the first to obtain the Dojutsu of reincarnation, the Rokudo Rinne as it was called in the book. However just because he wasn't the first to obtain it didn't mean it wasn't special, after all, at the moment he was pretty certain that he was the only person that possessed it in this millennium and that alone was enough to make its abilities unknown to modern ninjas and as he had quickly discovered, mysterious enemies are dangerous enemies.

Growing tired due to both the darkness outside and an early morning, Naruto placed a bookmark in the document before sealing it away with the rest of his collection and allowing himself to drift into an all consuming slumber.

XXX XXX XXX

Haruno Sakura was annoyed. Yet another random boy had asked her out despite the common warnings he had received, believing them to be nothing more than other boys trying to get her for themselves. He had found out the hard way that when someone tells you a girl will get a group of snakes to castrate you if you bother her, you really shouldn't bother her.

It had been approximately six years since she had started training under Anko and the results were clear, she had grown almost as aggressive as the purple haired Konoichi and had also developed a fondness of snakes after being allowed to sign their summoning contract, sure she couldn't summon anything big but considering she only really used them to castrate perverted boys, it didn't really matter.

Favouring practicality, Sakura was one of only two girls in her academy class with short hair, with the other being the young Hyūga heir, the only other girl in the class that didn't give boys a second glance, both deciding that their training was more important than romance at their age and point in career. The main difference between the two was obvious though, while Sakura focused on offensive Tai and Ninjutsu, Hinata preferred to focus on evasive and defensive Taijutsu and Iryōjutsu.

However despite everything she was being asked to learn, there was always one thing that Sakura would do everyday without fail… return to the apartment that had held so many happy memories for her before her Aniki had abandoned her and her mother, hoping that someday, the tenantless apartment that her mother kept clean, would once again house a young blond with whiskers.

"Hey Sakura!" came a call from next to her, snapping the pinkette out of her musings. Turning to face the owner of the voice, she wasn't the slightest bit surprised to see a girl with long blond hair tied into a ponytail, light blue eyes with one covered by a single bang of hair that dropped from her forehead and flawless skin. She was wearing a purple top and skirt with bandages covering her midriff and legs while white arm warmers covered her forearms, "you spaced out again."

"Huh? Oh sorry Ino… I was just thinking," came the subdued reply from the young pinkette.

"Yeah, well if you think like that on missions then bad things will happen."

"I know that… it's just hard for me to not think when nothing's happening, I mean seriously, all we're doing is revision so it's obvious I'll get bored," Sakura stated indignantly.

"And there are times when nothing happens on a mission, so you're going to have to learn how to concentrate if you're going to be a ninja," Ino responded with a wry grin.

"Please just shut up… I'm not in the mood to play with words right now," the young Haruno stated in a tired tone before tuning out everything else.

XXX XXX XXX

"_Home sweet home,"_ was the only thing going through Naruto's head as he walked towards the massive wooden walls that surrounded the village of Konohagakure no Sato, his mind racing as he wondered if anything had changed since he ran away five years ago.

"_**You certainly seem to be in high spirits brat, after all, what will you do if they try to kill you?"**_

"_There is a reason I love genjutsu you know," _came the calm reply from the young boy.

"_**Of course there is, it's because you can enhance it with those hell rings of yours,"**_the bijū stated earning a tick over the blonds eye at the jibe.

"_No, you know full well that I don't use my flames that often, even without them genjutsu is still a very powerful weapon,"_ Naruto responded with his irritation clear to the fox.

"_**Please, it's not that genjutsu is powerful, it's just that humans are weak minded."**_

"_And you are just an idiot that's going about the right way of getting yourself purified."_

"_**I'll shut up now."**_

"_Yes, you do just that,"_ the blond said seriously as he henged into a young man with dark purple hair tied into a pineapple style ponytail with his hair parted down the middle, though he kept his eyes and clothes the same. Quickly coming across the main gate, he quickly placed an illusion over a sheet of paper, making it look like typical travel papers before heading towards the gate keepers booth. After a quick check by two Chūnin placed at the gate, the henged blond simply walked into the village and started his walk towards the Hokages tower.

XXX XXX XXX

Sarutobi Hiruzen couldn't help but let out a tired sigh as he finished reading over a piece of paper and signing it. His life had grown boring ever since he was first appointed Hokage by the Nidaime… oh how he resented his former sensei for that. Then again, as Hokage he had complete control over the villages ninja forces and could ensure that his sensei's teachings were passed on so it wasn't a complete disaster.

Slowly taking a small tin of tobacco from his desk, the old man proceeded to refill his now empty pipe before using a simple match to light the powder, sure it might have been easier to just use some Katon chakra but he could always taste the difference and at his age, he felt he deserved to at least get the best out of his pipe.

"Excuse me Hokage-sama, there is someone by the name of Rokudo Mukuro here to see you, should I let him in?" the young secretary asked as she opened the door just enough to stick her head through.

"(sigh) It would be nice to get a break from this paperwork so why not," the aging ninja said calmly, before the young woman proceeded to open the door and allow the stranger through. Looking at the stranger for a few seconds, the old man suddenly noticed the presence of a high level genjutsu surrounding the man, immediately putting him on guard and ready to call for support, "hello there Rokudo-san, would you be so kind as to tell me who you are and what you're doing here… and please don't leave out the reason behind the genjutsu."

"Well it appears as though I need to improve my skills if I'm constantly being called out by Kage level nins," the purple haired man said calmly as he scanned the room for hidden guards, finding no trace of extra protection, then again since the man in front of him was officially the strongest ninja in the village he shouldn't really need bodyguards. Noticing the aged Kages eyes narrowing at his little jibe at his own skills, he continued speaking, "firstly the reason for the genjutsu is to avoid attracting too much attention and what I am doing here is returning to my home town," and with that said the purple haired figure flickered out of view to reveal a familiar mop of blond hair, "it's been a while hasn't it Jiji."

"N-Naruto, you… you," the Shinobi no Kami started only to get interrupted by the whiskered child.

"Yes, I am alive, I am perfectly fine and most importantly, I realise you are probably angry with me for running away but I had something to do and I did not want a babysitter sitting over my shoulders twenty four seven, so don't even start trying to tell me off because I won't listen, primarily because I was fully aware that the world is dangerous and that there was a good chance I could have been seriously hurt or even killed… now that I've already gotten that part of the conversation out of the way it is time for me to shout at you," Naruto stated, earning a shocked stare off the aged leader who could do nothing more than listen to the blond systematically going through all his worries before he even had a chance to state them. That was when he realised what the blond said last and suddenly found himself feeling a little smaller than he normally did, "when were you planning on telling me about the Kyūbi?" suddenly Hiruzen felt like he had just been caught in a nightmare. The blond had asked the question with such a calm and assertive tone that it left his heart racing as nerves he never knew he still had came rushing to the surface, "I'm waiting."

"I wasn't planning on telling you," the Sandaime finally let out of his mouth as he suddenly found himself unable to look the blond in the eyes.

"Would you expand on that statement," the genjutsu master said with a tone that gave neither any form of threat nor any option.

"(sigh) I thought that it would be best if you didn't know about it… if you didn't know about it then you couldn't be tempted by it or start hating the Yondaime for sealing it in you," Sarutobi explained as he began to feel more and more disappointed in himself. Then just as he was feeling at an all time low, his emotions suddenly decreased, shocking him in the process.

"Sorry about that, but I wanted the truth about why you never told me and genjutsu is very good for situations like that," the heterochromatic blond stated calmly, causing the Hokages eyes to widen upon realising that he had just had his emotions played by a genjutsu, "now, just in case you want to know what I've been doing for the past five years, I will only say this, every ninja has their secrets and I'm no exception, so don't pry."

"And may I pry about your eye?" the wrinkled old man asked as he realised the blond wouldn't tell him what he was doing.

"All I am prepared to say about my eye is that it is a doujutsu however it is NOT a kekkei genkai. If you want to know what it does then you are out of luck, after all, knowledge is power and I don't want to be powerless," the young blond explained, causing the old man to let out a sigh… oh how he wanted to at least know what the child's limits where and given the amount of information he had been given, all he knew was that the blond was easily a master of genjutsu and that piece of knowledge came from his experience of barely being capable of detecting the boys henge.

"(sigh) then what sort of level would you place yourself at?" the old Kage asked hoping to learn at least a little about the blond.

"Higher than an academy student," came the vague response, earning a tick of irritation from the old man.

"Can you be more specific than that?" Hiruzen asked with a hint of anger present in his tone.

"I could, however I am not prepared to tell you more than that, after all, you kept the Kyūbi a secret from me so why should I trust that you aren't keeping more from me? Until I'm certain that you aren't keeping me in the dark about anything revolving around me then I will keep you in the dark concerning myself and my abilities, am I making myself clear?" the spiky haired youth stated, shocking the much older ninja in the process… to think that it was his own decision to keep secrets from the blond that had caused this scenario.

"I see… you said that you are beyond academy student level, so that would mean that you are confident you can pass the academy exam if you were to sit it," the Hokage stated seriously, earning a curt nod from the blond, "in that case, go to the ninja academy tomorrow and take this note to room 3-2," with that said the Hokage wrote a short note that he passed onto the young blond who quickly pocketed it.

"Would it be safe to assume that my old apartment is no longer vacant?" Naruto asked in a questioning manner, earning a small smile from the older man.

"You might not have left a lot in that note of yours, but you did state that you would be coming back someday, so I've kept the apartment aside for you… if my memory serves me correctly, Isako has been cleaning it on a regular basis to," Sarutobi informed the younger of the two, earning a small smile in the process.

"Thank you Jiji… now I guess I really should let you get on with your paperwork," the whiskered blond stated as his form was obscured by a fine blue mist of chakra before it assumed the form of the purple haired man once again, "thank you for speaking with me on such short notice Hokage-sama, I hope to speak with you again sometime," the newly assumed Rokudo Mukuro said as he opened the door.

"The pleasure was all mine Mukuro-san, you proved to be a pleasant distraction from this damn paperwork," the Sandaime said back, deciding to play along with the blond.

"I'm honoured that you would rate me so highly, now I'm sorry but I believe your paperwork needs to be completed," 'Mukuro' stated with a small smile before closing the door and leaving the corridor, thanking the secretary for letting him see the old man during the process.

Behind the closed door, Sarutobi couldn't help but let out a warm smile as his eyes softened.

"Thank god Naruto's back."


	7. Chapter 7

Naruto couldn't help but reminisce about his life before leaving Konoha as he walked through the crowded streets, his henge still in place over him. As his mind continued to wander, he couldn't help but think about the woman that had taught him his art. Thinking back on it, he couldn't help but remember her form, dancing around while throwing precise strikes that he could only dodge with illusions.

He was fully aware of her promotion to Jōnin, it had only been given a few months ago but she certainly deserved it. Naruto would happily admit that there wasn't much he didn't know about or unable to find courtesy of his eye. With the sixth paths ability to possess others including animals and the second paths ability to allow him to use all the originals skill as long as he possessed them, he was easily capable of using animals to spy on others, though it wasn't unheard of for him to possess a weak minded person and simply invade a villages archive to discover their secrets. It was by doing that that he knew for a fact that the Hokage was still hiding things from him, however he wouldn't let the man know he knew what was being 'hidden' from him until after he was told the secrets from the horse's mouth.

Lost in his thoughts, he soon found himself standing outside a familiar café, once again causing his thoughts to drift back to his old sensei and their first meeting and how Anko had managed to use her pride in genjutsu to trick her into training him. Of course his skills had grown significantly since then and from now on, their relationship would no longer be that of master and pupil, but of equals… at least that was what he thought.

Walking into the store, Naruto couldn't help but scan the small café, a small smile creeping onto his lips as he realised the place he first met Kurenai was exactly as he remembered it. Though that did nothing to distract him from three presences that he immediately recognised.

Walking over to the counter, 'Mukuro' placed a simple order for some herbal tea, where he simply waited until his drink was ready before walking over to an empty seat at a nearly full table.

"Hello, do you mind if I sit here?" came a simple question as he looked at the three ninja he recognised.

"Why do you want to sit here when there are so many free seats around?" a masked man with one eye asked as he gave the stranger a suspicious look.

"What do you mean by free seats?" Naruto asked in response, prompting Kakashi to look around the stall and blink in surprise when he saw it was completely full… he was certain it wasn't like that a second ago, "so can I please take this seat?"

"Sure, besides why would we turn down a hunk like you?" a familiar purple haired woman responded with a grin as he took a seat opposite her and next to the Cyclops.

"My my, I thought ninja were supposed to be subtle Anko-san," the child stated with a small grin, wondering exactly how long it would take them to realise there was something wrong.

And he wasn't disappointed when the trio immediately tensed as their eyes narrowed dangerously.

"How do you know my name?" the snake user asked quietly while leaving no room for argument, as her hand reached into her coat and started to grip a kunai tightly in case a fight broke out.

"The answer to that is simple… we have all met each other before," Naruto stated calmly, before he found a kunai placed on his throat courtesy of the man sitting next to him.

"Trust me, I would've remembered someone as distinct as you if we'd met before," the ninjutsu specialist stated coldly, "now how do you know our names?"

"Like I said, we've met before… however back then I wasn't wearing a henge like I am now," Naruto stated before taking a sip of his tea and letting out a content sigh.

The three ninja watching this man couldn't help but feel nervous, this man was completely at ease with a kunai pressed against his throat and he claimed that he was wearing a henge though none of them could detect it. The third member of the group, the woman Naruto had been thinking about before he came across the stall, gave a brief glance towards the most experienced of the group, who slowly and deliberately, pulled his headband up to uncover his left eye, the fabled Sharingan Naruto had heard so much about.

Seeing it firsthand he had to admit it didn't look that impressive… honestly he thought his Rokudo Rinne looked more sinister than the simple pattern of three comma like tomoe on top of a red iris. However what Naruto couldn't help but smirk at was the Jōnin's reaction upon looking at him with his doujutsu, the sheer amount of shock present in the silver haired ninja's eyes was clear to all at the table.

"Alright! Explain why the entire stand is under a genjutsu!" the masked Jōnin shouted at the 'stranger' as he jumped from his seat and prepared himself to use a ninjutsu at a moment's notice.

"My, my, do you honestly believe that I would tell you something like that?" Naruto asked as he wore a confident smile, knowing that the onlookers only saw what he wanted them to see.

"You're in no position to try calling the shots," the sharingan ninja stated seriously as his doujutsu focused on the purple haired stranger in front of him before both his eyes once again widened in shock as he felt a sharp cold pressed against his jugular.

"Perhaps, however you assumed that the one you where facing was the real me, however your eye can only see the chakra behind the technique, it cannot actually see through the illusion itself," Naruto stated calmly as he casually sat in a window behind the Jōnin and held a kunai against his neck, "now then, shall we get to what I sat here for?"

"And what did you sit here for?" Kurenai asked nervously as she watched the pineapple haired man hold the strongest of them at knife point.

"A nice conversation with old friends, Nai-sensei," immediately Kakashi and Anko noticed the sharp breath that their friend suddenly took as her eyes widened in disbelief.

"Wait, did you just call Kurenai sensei?" Anko asked while blinking in disbelief before she suddenly remembered someone extremely talented in the art of genjutsu the slightly older woman had once trained, "wait… you're Yakumo right?"

"No, I am not the Kurama heir, however I do intend on paying her a visit at some point," the 'purple' haired man stated with a small smile, before a fist flew at him… and straight through him, shocking all the witnesses.

"How?" was all Kakashi could manage to say as he realised the one behind him was the illusion courtesy of it disappearing upon Kurenai's fist passing through it.

"It is very simple Kakashi… it is possible for genjutsu to control ALL the senses, so all I did was deceive your sense of touch into believing that you could feel a blade to your throat," Naruto stated calmly as he took another sip of his tea.

"Hold on just a moment! Why did you attack this guy Kurenai? Do you know who he is?" Anko asked hoping to get some answers from the obviously furious woman.

"Do I know who he is? Of course I know who he is… he learned everything about freeform genjutsu from scratch off me in just thirteen months," the red eyed Jōnin told them, scaring the other two in the process.

"But why wouldn't I have learned it all in thirteen months with such an amazing teacher?" the genjutsu master said with a happy smile.

"If you think flattering me will save you then you still have a lot to learn," the genjutsu mistress stated with her anger still present in her voice, before she raised her fist to strike the boy again… only to find her arm bound by a tree that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

"I was not trying to flatter you Nai-sensei, you really are a superb teacher and I would've never become as strong as I have without your tutoring and it is my skills that will protect me from your anger," Naruto said calmly as the red eyed woman attempted to break free from the illusion… keyword being attempted.

"I see… it seems like you've grown a lot since we last saw each other," the young Jōnin stated calmly as she tried to find a way out of the illusion.

"Indeed I have, if I was to make an estimate on my strength now compared to back then, I would say that I am easily fifty to sixty times stronger now than back then," the currently purple haired man told her calmly.

"I doubt it's possible to grow that much in just five years Naruto," Kurenai stated seriously, causing pure shock to flow through her colleagues minds… this stranger that was toying with their senses was the little kid they managed to trick Kurenai into teaching.

"Under normal training regimes yes… however my regime was anything but normal and if you combine my training with my significant increase in physical maturity and it is actually quite easy for my strength to have grown that much," Naruto told her while never letting his small smile leave his face.

"Wait just a minute! You're Naruto!" Anko couldn't help but shouted out in surprise as her mind finished going through everything she had seen of the blond and comparing it to this man.

"Is that a problem Anko-san?" was the only response she got for her outburst.

"But the last time I checked you were just a stubborn brat!"

"And now I'm a manipulative, stubborn brat," came the calm response, accentuated by a small smirk that graced his lips before finishing his tea.

"Well if you two are quite finished, I would like to know what this training regime you went through is," Kurenai demanded upon Anko quieting down.

"But of course you do, after all any regime capable of causing that drastic an increase in one's skills is obviously going to be searched for," the heterochromatic boy stated calmly, causing the Jōnin to pay extra attention to him, "however, I must deny you that information just now."

"WHAT?! What the hell do you mean you have to deny us right now?!" the purple haired woman shouted indignantly, causing the child's confident smile to grow slightly.

"It is because of your loyalty to the Sandaime Hokage," Naruto told them calmly, causing the ninja to put their guards up in case he was actually planning on killing them.

"So you plan on betraying Hokage-sama," Kakashi stated his conclusion, ready to strike down the figure before him if it turned out correct.

"No, I am simply not prepared to let him know any of my secrets until he has ceased keeping secrets about me, from me," came the serious response, his smile replaced by a blank stare, his doujutsu causing a small shiver to run up the groups spines.

"What makes you think that he's keeping secrets from you?" Kurenai asked him as she continued to try and break free of the illusion that had trapped her.

"I know, that's all you need to know Nai-sensei," Naruto told her with no sign of being even slightly intimidated by the trio he was talking to, "now if you'll excuse me, I've had a relatively busy day so I intend on going home and unpacking… still, it certainly was good to see you again sensei, Anko-san, Kakashi-san," the (currently) purple haired man told them calmly as the illusion shattered, revealing that the three were all alone.

"Uh… hey Kakashi, just how close to getting our ass's handed to us were we?" Anko couldn't help but ask upon witnessing the genjutsu dispel itself.

"I don't know, he knows the trick to the sharingan so he knows how to fool it, so right now I would say that he is possibly on par with Uchiha Itachi in terms of genjutsu," the silver haired Jōnin stated seriously, resulting in the purple haired Konoichi letting out a nervous chuckle at his statement as all three of them let their thoughts wander.

XXX XXX XXX

"It certainly is good to be home," came a subdued voice, though no one could miss the happiness in its tone as he dropped the illusion, revealing his spiky blond hair and whiskered cheeks.

The apartment was just as he remembered it… well apart from the odd bit of damage that had been repaired but that didn't really matter as far as he was concerned. Isako had obviously taken good care of it during his absence.

Thinking about her, he immediately decided that he would apologise to her as soon as he could tomorrow, right now he simply wanted to sleep in his own, soft, warm bed, before attending the so called 'shinobi academy'. It was something that separated Konoha from the other villages, the academy didn't desensitize the children and instead of focusing solely on ninja skills and survival techniques, actually taught them several civilian skills in case they didn't make it past the exams. Of course this approach also meant that a smaller number of student would pass the exams… if the exams were like their counterparts in other villages.

Instead the Konoha genin exams were nothing more than tests that made sure the children knew a single jutsu and were capable of beating up a drunk civilian, meaning nearly everyone passed the first test. The second exam wasn't much better, simply making sure that the kids could work together in their newly assigned teams… something that shouldn't need to be tested if they were trained correctly in the first place.

Letting out a small sigh of frustration, Naruto comforted himself in the knowledge that once he reached a high enough rung on the social ladder he would correct the academy's faults by using the best techniques(1) he had discovered while infiltrating other villages.

"_**I still don't understand why you bother with this village,"**_ came the all too familiar voice from the back of his mind.

"_Several reasons actually, one, I have people I care about here, two I was born here and three… they would want me to do everything I can to protect this place," _Naruto responded in his head as he started to unseal his belongings.

"_**Oh? And how can you be sure of that? You've only met one of them so how can you be so certain they would want you to protect the village?"**_ Kyūbi asked in a mischievous tone.

"_Oh, I don't know… it's not like they gave their LIVES to stop you from destroying Konoha now is it?"_ Naruto couldn't help but respond sarcastically.

"_**Will you give it a rest already, I said I'm sorry."**_

"_Yes you did… however it doesn't take a genius to see that you were lying."_

"_**And what makes you so certain I was lying?"**_ the giant fox asked seriously.

"_Oh I don't know… probably the fact that I had heard that tone several times before… namely when you were talking about the weather," _Naruto stated perfectly calmly as he sat down at the table, _"now be quiet, I want to make sure I'm ready for tomorrow."_

"_**I thought you were already ready smartass," **_the Kitsune stated in a snarky tone.

"_Oh I most probably am, but you know that I prefer to make one hundred percent certain that I can do something before attempting it," _the blond told the bijū as he started to read through the new book he bought on his way home. It was the most up to date textbook for the academy, touching on all the subject matter the class was required to know or be capable of doing, all the way from the name of the village to the three most basic shinobi techniques taught ANYWHERE.

XXX XXX XXX

Sakura couldn't help but feel sad. It was finally the day she would graduate the academy and the one person she wanted to graduate with wasn't even in the class.

Sure it wasn't like she didn't have friends, she got along fine with Hinata, Ino and Sasuke, so the chances were that she would end up on a team with at least one of them.

Thinking about her social group, Hinata was the exact opposite of her, a shy girl that focused more on defence and medical skills, while she was an outgoing girl that focused on offense and either poisoning people or blowing things up.

Ino was a basic support type skill wise and was generally vain, always focusing on her figure and appearance above improving her skills, not that she ignored her skills… she just put her looks first.

And lastly there was Sasuke, the boy most girls fawned over… which was one of the reasons she was his favourite girl, instead of asking him on a date, she would drag him to a training field and try to kill him when her true sensei was busy, which caused both of their skills to improve (though their sparring sessions could get a little too dangerous at times).

Despite her attachment to those three, she had always wanted to graduate with her 'aniki' since he was the one that caused her to take her life seriously back when they first met each other, plus he was the one who found her a teacher.

"Alright class, sit down and shut up!" came the loud order from the teacher as he walked into the room with his assistant. He was a young man with dark hair tied into a pineapple like ponytail, while a large scar decorated his nose. He was dressed in the typical Konoha Chūnin wardrobe complete with an olive green flak jacket and a hitae-ate tied around his forehead by a long piece of blue fabric. The assistant was of a similar age and possessed simple white hair that he allowed to flow to his shoulders while he wore a similar attire though with the exception of his hitae-ate which was not visible on him at all.

Almost immediately the volume of the classroom dropped several notches as the children did what they usually did to avoid his 'big head jutsu', as they liked to called it.

"Okay class, today is the day of the genin exams so if you have any questions then ask now because once the exam has started there will be no talking," the scarred Chūnin told them, earning no questions from the group.

Suddenly a knock was heard on the door, causing the instructor to growl out in irritation before walking towards the door and opening it. Almost immediately his eyes opened in shock as he gazed upon a famous face within Konoha's walls… the whiskered cheeks of the Kyūbi's host.

"Good morning, this is class 3-2 is it not?" Naruto flowed out as he reached into his coat, pulling out the letter he had received from the Hokage the previous day before handing it over to the Chūnin.

Most of the class was curious about what was happening, however since the boy was still within the corridor not many people could see him properly if at all. It didn't take long for the class to start muttering about what was happening.

For once Sakura was listening to the conversations, purely because the voice sounded familiar though she couldn't place it anywhere… almost like a distant memory.

Before her mind even had a chance to remember who the voice belonged to, it had shut down as a familiar head of spiky blonde hair followed their sensei through the door and into the front of the classroom.

"(sigh) Alright class this is Uzumaki Naruto and he will be sitting the genin exam with you today," the scarred Chūnin told them with a hint of annoyance in his tone as the class suddenly started making a commotion over the fact that someone that had never been a part of the class was suddenly arriving to sit the exam.

Sakura's mind had finally restarted and was immediately filled with joy at seeing her 'big brother' again… before it started to change. What started off as joy quickly turned to anger as she remembered the pain he caused both her and her mother when he left the village. Now there was one thing that anyone who knew Sakura knew, when she was angry she only really had one course of action she ever took.

At the front of the class, the Chūnin instructor immediately noticed something wrong as his honed senses picked up a large amount of hissing… which he quickly identified as numerous snakes speeding towards the new student. Not prepared to allow the new student to get bitten to shreds by the obviously angry Sakura's summons he automatically went through the process of performing a Kawarimi only to find his target disrupting the technique before it could be completed.

It was then that he noticed something strange, the child's eye that had previously been decorated by the Kanji for one had suddenly changed, now displaying the kanji for three. Another surprise for the young Chūnin was what happened next, the once lunging snakes closed their mouths, stopped hissing and instead of charging into him, slowed down and started to wrap around him while making no attempts to constrict him.

Out of everyone in the class, none could believe what just happened less than Sakura herself. It was something that had never happened before, her snake had disobeyed her orders and refused to attack the blond. Quickly snapping out of the stupor the event had left her in, she quickly released the snakes before jumping over her desk and charging the young blond, ready to beat him to death for what he did.

Suddenly she found herself unable to move as the teacher and his assistant quickly pinned her down.

"Iruka-sensei! Let go of me!" she shouted in anger as the pineapple haired Chūnin held her down in an attempt to stop one of his top students from killing the new guy.

"No! Now I don't know why you are trying to attack Naruto-san but that behaviour is unacceptable!" the newly dubbed Iruka told her firmly as she struggled to get free of the duo's grasp, the rest of the class shocked at her reaction… well all except one.

Hyūga Hinata knew why Sakura was so angry courtesy of knowing about the blond from her real sensei and if what she had been told was correct then this boy was MORE than capable of holding his own against any normal Chūnin courtesy of his sheer talent in the art of genjutsu. Of course she couldn't help but wonder what he was like as a person, because despite what her sensei had told her about him being a good person, he had run away from the village, hurting several people emotionally in the process.

"Excuse me Iruka-san but could you please release Sakura and not attempt to interfere anymore than you already have?" Naruto suddenly requested, shocking everyone with his request… before they noticed something out of place.

"Hold on, how do you know Sakura's name?" Iruka asked, already having a faint idea what the answer was.

"Why ask something you already know the answer to?" the blond asked rhetorically, causing a vein to throb in the older man's head.

"Confirmation," was the only word that escaped the Chūnin's mouth as he released the young girl.

Almost immediately she was in his face and without a moment of hesitation, had proceeded to slam her fist in the blonds face… and that was the start of a relentless assault on the blond genjutsu master as she proceeded to work out all her frustration, occasionally drawing blood from either the boy's face or her own hand.

Everyone in the room could only stare in horror at the scene before them as they witnessed Sakura's true wrath for the first time in their lives, unable to believe that the new guy wasn't even flinching as her hits rained towards him. Eventually the hits began to slow as a quiet noise could be heard between the strikes she lay on the boy.

"Why… why did you leave us?" was the barely audible question that escaped the pinkette's lips as the blows finally came to an end and the onlookers were finally capable of making out what the other sound was… sobbing.

"There was something I wanted to do before becoming a ninja… and I didn't want a babysitter looking over my shoulder every second of every day," the heterochromatic boy told her calmly, causing several questions to stir through the class.

"Alright, that's enough, I don't know what happened between you two but we really need to get the exam started now," Iruka told the duo with a hint of amazement at the blonds ability to take a beating like that and still act normally.

"Of course Iruka-san, would you please direct me to an available seat?" Naruto asked the instructor calmly as Sakura made her way back to her own seat.

"Well let's see… you can take the seat next to Shikamaru, he's," Iruka started only to be cut off by the blond.

"The heir to the Nara clan, and currently sleeping next to the heir of the Akimichi clan," Naruto stated as he walked towards the back row of the class.

"SHIKAMARU! WAKE THE HELL UP!" came the angry shout of the Chūnin instructor, effectively shocking the young boy with a similar hairstyle to himself awake, "now Mizuki will hand out your papers, from now on there will be no talking and anyone found cheating will be immediately removed from the class."

And with the rules stated, the silver haired man proceeded to pass a large number of papers throughout the class.

"You may now begin," Iruka told them as the last of the papers was handed out.

(1)he means teaching techniques, not combat techniques.


	8. Chapter 8

Sarutobi Hiruzen was not having a good day. He was currently standing over a hospital bed where a middle aged man with long blond hair was laying occasionally muttering in fear.

"Have you managed to find out what happened yet Santa?" the aged leader asked another blond man, this one standing over the other with his hands to his head.

"Not yet Hokage-sama," the conscious ninja stated calmly as he proceeded to use one of his clans techniques to try and discover what had happened to the man. They knew the basic gist of what had happened to the middle aged blond, he had been sent to one Uzumaki Naruto's apartment during the middle of the night to search his mind when his guard was down.

And now he was paying the price. What was scaring the Hokage more than anything though, was the identity of the blond that was currently hospitalised… he was Yamanaka Inoichi, the current head, and also the strongest of the Yamanaka clan, THE greatest mind readers in the world, if he was reduced to this state upon entering the young teens mind then there was no telling how great a danger the blond really was.

"AH!" immediately Sarutobi was at the younger Yamanaka's side hoping that he would be able to tell him what had happened.

"What happened?!" the aged leader demanded firmly as the younger man quickly got over his shock.

"I'm sorry Hokage-sama, I was just caught off guard by Inoichi-sama's memory," Santa told the wrinkled Kage, earning a hint of confusion off the man.

"Would you care to explain what managed to surprise you enough to knock you out of your jutsu?"

"Of course Hokage-sama."

_Yamanaka Inoichi couldn't help but feel nervous as he silently drifted across the rooftops to complete the first real mission he had been given since he took over the role of leading the Yamanaka clan. Sure he had been given the odd job here and there but for the most part, he had been mostly inactive._

_So now that he had been given the mission of infiltrating the mind of someone that was BOTH a master illusionist and a jinchūriki, he began to doubt his skills. He knew from experience that jinchūriki tended to have dangerous mindscapes… they were the cage that held a bijū in them after all. However he was also aware that the bijū sealed in a jinchūriki was usually very limited by the seal that held it in place and were not as dangerous as they would be if they were found unsealed._

_What scared him most about the description he was given of his target was not that he was a jinchūriki, but rather a genjutsu master. That fact was more nerve wracking than anything else when about to invade someone's mind, since a general rule of thumb was that the better at genjutsu you were, the better you were at keeping control of both your perception and your mind._

_The clan head snapped himself out of his worries as he reached his destination, he had a mission to complete and he would not fail the Hokage, that was the duty of a clan head._

_The middle aged ninja observed his target from a roof overlooking the younger persons apartment, quickly determining that the boy was sleeping peacefully._

_Just a couple of seconds after making his observation, the blond man was already at the side of the genjutsu masters bed. Quickly moulding his chakra into his clan's legendary technique, Inoichi proceeded to enter the sleeping blonds head._

_Almost immediately he was hit with a feeling he had only ever experienced when entering another's mind once before… fear. It was not fear of the child's memories, or the décor, but of the feeling that he was not as in control as he should have been._

_The child's mind was quite surprising, large, brightly lit halls with countless paintings of both hero's of the hidden villages and large groups of people that he had never seen before… including a man with spiky red hair and ripple like eyes, wearing a decorative robe with a necklace of magatama and a large staff with several rings attached to the top._

_The corridor was also fitted with scarlet carpets and large numbers of strange, full body armour that covered even the face from view._

_Taking a deep breath, the Yamanaka clan head proceeded to try and make his way towards wherever the memories of the blond were stored… only to pass a large set of doors that immediately flung inwards, to reveal what the older man could describe as a throne room._

"_Welcome to my reality Yamanaka Inoichi-san," came a calm call from the back of the room, causing the veteran ninja to look at his opponent._

_Naruto sat there, perfectly calm as his Rokudo-Rinne pierced the older man's eyes. Wearing his usual attire he simply cradled his chin in his fingers as the blond ninja began to sweat nervously as fear gripped him._

"_Now, now, Yamanaka Inoichi-san… did you really think I'd let you leave here after you so rudely intruded on my sleep?" the spiky haired blond asked as he let out a cruel smile as he decided on the manner in which he would torture the invader, "now, I would advise you to leave… other Yamanaka-san."_

"That's when I was shocked out of my trance Hokage-sama…" Santa told the Hokage as he looked down in shame.

"Tell me, did Inoichi try to cancel his jutsu?" Sarutobi asked the younger man, hoping against hope that he was wrong about his suspicions.

"He did, Hokage-sama."

"I see… thank you for your time Santa-kun, your help was invaluable," the 'Shinobi no Kami' said before dismissing the young man, as his mind raced on the subject of the child that managed to do something only Uchiha Itachi had ever succeeded in doing, preventing a Yamanaka from leaving their head.

XXX XXX XXX

It was a normal thing for Naruto to feel that others were underestimating his intelligence but this was ridiculous.

He had immediately seen through the pathetic attempt at a genjutsu the white haired assistant had placed on the paper, before being tempted to try and dispel a second one… when he realised just how simple and worthless the questions were.

Looking at the written paper with an expression of complete loathing, which didn't go unnoticed… especially by the Chūnin who placed the genjutsu on the sheet of paper, Naruto answered the questions as quickly as he could, hoping that he would never have to answer such a simple series of questions ever again.

He was finished within two minutes, after which he simply turned his question paper over before putting his feet up on his desk and taking a quick nap.

XXX XXX XXX

Mizuki didn't know what just happened. The taijutsu portion of the graduation exam was being conducted, with each student facing him in a simple spar.

He had just started the test with the blond jinchūriki and proceeded to try and cause as much damage to the blond as he could. The problem was that one second he was charging at the blond jinchūriki and the next he was lying on the floor with a broken arm and two fractured ribs.

The entire class could do nothing more than stare as they witnessed their instructors assistant lose to the new addition to their class in a fraction of a second.

Only four people could even tell what had happened, Iruka, Sakura, Sasuke and Hinata. They had all managed to glimpse the blonds movements, a perfectly executed redirection of Mizuki's punch, which was countered with a simple strike to the elbow and a knee blow to his chest… with both strikes hitting their mark with a sickening crunch. Once the strikes had made contact a simple twist of the Chūnin's arm was enough to flip him onto his back.

"S-Shousha, Uzumaki Naruto," the scarred Chūnin called out as the young blond calmly left the ring set up for their taijutsu examination.

Noticing that Mizuki was no longer in a condition to test the genin, Iruka did the only thing he could given the circumstances, take over from his childhood friend as he instructed Naruto to take the older man to the infirmary.

XXX XXX XXX

"Well, I have to admit that you certainly are quite skilled for your age Naruto-kun, may I ask who trained you?" Mizuki asked the young boy with a warm smile as he was supported by the child that inflicted the injuries in the first place.

"And I could say that you lack skill for your age Mizuki-san," Naruto responded calmly as he let out a small smirk at the man's obvious irritation towards the jab at his skills.

"Well I haven't had any good sensei's Naruto-kun," the silver haired man claimed in an attempt to deflect the blame for his lower than average skills.

"And we both know why that is now don't we," came the calm response to the statement.

"What do you mean by that?" the Chūnin instructor asked with a barely noticeable amount of nervousness in his voice.

"Oh… only that you aren't exactly loyal to Konoha now are you Hebi-chan," Naruto stated with a little smirk gracing his lips.

"I'm sorry, but are you accusing me of being a traitor? If so then I think we need to clear things with each other," the injured man responded in a calm and kind manner.

"Kufufufu, no we don't," the blond haired child said with a distinct laugh as his form was covered in an indigo haze.

XXX XXX XXX

"AAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Immediately the Chūnin instructor known as Umino Iruka jumped in shock as he heard his childhood friends voice screaming in terror while he was testing the children in their taijutsu skills.

"Everyone stay here, I'm going to see what happened!" the scarred Chūnin ordered the class as he began to move at top speed towards the academy.

As soon as the pineapple haired Chūnin had left the area the once silent group suddenly burst out in whispers, with the main topic being the new student.

While the majority of the group was muttering quietly about the stranger, three individual's simply sat without saying a word.

Uchiha Sasuke couldn't help but feel a sense of anticipation upon witnessing the spiky haired blond completely crush one of their sensei's in the art of taijutsu. It was a feeling he had only felt with one other person before… Haruno Sakura, the only person in the class that could push him to his limits in a spar, realising that he might have a new rival caused the dark haired boy to shiver in excitement, the stronger his rivals were, the lower his goal would appear to be.

Hyūga Hinata couldn't help but feel strange. She had heard about Uzumaki Naruto off her sensei, she knew all about his sheer talent in the art of Genjutsu, she knew about his relationship with the Haruno's and she knew he threw away everything by running away from Konoha six years ago. This caused several questions to appear in her head, why did he leave? Why did he return? Why was he being given a chance at that genin exam? Why was the Hokage allowing the boy to simply roam the village? Was he loyal to another party? Would he betray them all if he stayed? All these questions rushed through her head and she couldn't figure out an answer to any of them, for all intensive purposes she believed the blond should at least be locked up until his situation had been fully investigated and his purpose was determined. All in all, she just couldn't trust someone that would throw away their bonds just like that.

Haruno Sakura couldn't bring herself to think straight at all. The person she had thought of as a big brother had finally come back… and he just walked into her class without a care in the world. She didn't know how she should feel about the situation, should she be angry with him for literally walking right back into her life? Should she be happy that he had finally returned after all these years of separation? All in all, she couldn't help but feel conflicted and hope that her mind sorted out what she wanted sooner, rather than later.

Unfortunately her musings were interrupted by her closest friend… who was one of the many people that she had never talked to about Naruto.

XXX XXX XXX

Iruka couldn't help but look on in shock as he found Naruto and Mizuki… who just so happened to be surrounded by several members of ANBU black ops, each member poised to draw their blade at a moment's notice.

It almost scared him that the blond was literally standing in a completely relaxed state with the silver haired assistant laying at his feet, with only the regular twitching indicating that he was still alive.

"Uzumaki Naruto, stand down and walk away from Mizuki," one that was obviously a commander ordered the blond in a tone that held authority surpassed only by the Hokage himself.

"My my… are you trying to sabotage my chances of becoming a genin?" Naruto asked without a hint of concern in his voice, "if Hokage-sama wants me to fail then he could've simply forbidden me from participating now couldn't he?" he continued to ask rhetorically.

"You have harmed a ninja of Konohagakure, you will either come with us peacefully or by force," the Taichō stated in complete seriousness.

"Now why would I force you to take me anywhere?" the heterochromatic blond asked mockingly, earning a small hand sign from the Taichō.

Immediately one of the other members sprung forward and placed their ninjato at the child's neck before his hands passed straight through the blond. Before anyone could react, a large golden blade appeared at the masked ninja's throat.

Behind the shocked ANBU, Naruto stood perfectly calmly, while he held a large and ornate, gold scythe at the unfortunate ninja's neck.

"Like I said, why would I force you to take me anywhere?" the young boy asked rhetorically once again, "but if you wish for me to go with you to see the Hokage, then I will go peacefully," he stated as he removed his weapon from the ANBU's neck and placed it on his back where it immediately dissolved in a mist like fashion.

The elite ninja were caught off guard. The blond had just put himself in an advantageous position and immediately given in… it didn't make sense as far as they could see.

"So, what are you waiting for? I thought you were taking me away from here?" Naruto asked with a small smirk that put the ANBU on guard.

"What did you do to Mizuki?!" Iruka finally decided to call out, anger welling up at the sight of his friend reduced to the state he was currently in.

"Kufufu, what did I do to him? I did nothing to HIM, I merely used a henge," the genjutsu master informed them with a mocking confidence causing their eyes to narrow behind their masks.

"Why would a henge cause him to have a nervous breakdown?" Iruka asked as a small bead of sweat began to form on his forehead.

"Oh, why don't you get a Yamanaka to see for themselves?" the young boy asked them with a small smirk as he stood perfectly calmly.

"We'll do that once we've taken you to T&I," the commanding ANBU told him in a serious tone as he moved to restrain the blond.

"I see… very well, I'll come quietly, under the condition that Mizuki-san be taken there as well," Naruto stated with a disturbing grin, causing the ANBU to feel a cold chill run up their spines.

"Why should we take him with us?" the ANBU Taichō asked, earning an almost predatory smile off the blond.

"Oh, you'll see."

XXX XXX XXX

The class couldn't believe what they were hearing… the most aggressive and antisocial of their class grew up with someone she had considered a brother and he had run away from Konoha roughly six years ago.

"Wait… so just how strong is he?" Ino asked hoping her best friend had at least an idea of the new persons strength.

"I don't know…" was the only reply she got from the pinkette who lacked her usual ferocity.

"Damn… so no one knows anything about the new guys skills," the blonde girl muttered as her thirst for gossip kicked in.

"I've heard he's talented in genjutsu," came a quiet call from the other side of the field, causing everyone to look at the Hyūga heir in surprise.

No one had expected the quietest of the class to say anything concerning the new boy, let alone say something about his skills.

"Huh? Do you know the new guy Hinata?" the young gossip asked in surprise as everyone's attention focussed on the lavender eyed girl, who promptly proceeded to withdraw into her relatively large coat.

"M-my sensei told me about him… he was her student before me," Hinata informed them all, earning wide eyes as the group closed in to hear more… which resulted in her retreating even further into her coat.

"So what do you know?" Ino asked as even Sasuke listened closely for a change.

"A-all I know is that he's an expert in free form genjutsu, with some taijutsu skills to back it up," Hinata informed them, causing them to look around curiously.

"You said he had taijutsu skills to back up his genjutsu right?" came a question that got the fangirls in the class to look at the most famous member of their class with hearts in their eyes.

"H-hai," was Hinata's nervous reply as she wondered what the top of their class was thinking about.

"Then that means that his genjutsu is even better than his taijutsu… and he just destroyed Mizuki in that area," Sasuke mused, causing many of the class to suddenly realise that the blond may in fact, be even better than the 'last Uchiha'.

"Alright class, get ready to continue the exam," came the firm call from a familiar scarred Chūnin as he walked slowly towards the group, causing the entire class to face him sharply with their mouths already forming words, "AND SHUT UP! This is an exam and talking isn't allowed."

Instantly the group closed their mouths as they asked themselves what had happened to the new guy and Mizuki.

XXX XXX XXX

Deep within the Hokages tower, below the ground floor, the torture and interrogation department were already developing a headache.

"I came here voluntarily, the least you could do is give me a drink," Naruto claimed as he stared the best interrogator Konoha had in the eyes.

He was a tall man built like a bear with several scars running across his face, while a bandana covered the rest of his head. He dressed purely in black, a large trench coat that made him appear even bigger than he actually was, a black shirt, ninja pants and a pair of combat boots. His name was Morino Ibiki.

The room was large and dark, the poor lighting tended to help exaggerate the interrogators size even further, which under most normal circumstances, would make the person more intimidating. Located in the middle of the room was a simple chair where the prisoner was (supposed) to be restrained (however they had quickly discovered that restraining the blond was like trying to handcuff water… pretty much impossible).

What was really giving everyone a headache was not just the fact that the blond was completely unfazed by them, nor the fact that no matter what they tried they couldn't restrain him, but a combination of those two problems and the fact he was demanding a drink… not just any drink, but a double vodka & lime with a slice of lemon on the side.

"I said no and I won't change my mind, you are a minor and therefore, you are not allowed to drink alcohol," the scarred interrogator stated with an even tone.

"Oh? So let me get this straight, you are saying that a minor effortlessly eliminated a fully fledged Chūnin of Konohagakure no Sato, a person, who judging by their rank, is supposedly a representative of this villages power?" Naruto asked the bear like man with a grin, seeing the extremely minor details that gave away the man's irritation at his jab, "so are you trying to tell me that a person that can't even drink is strong enough to take out most of this villages force? I must say I am disappointed."

"It has nothing to do with your strength, the reason you are not allowed to drink alcohol is your age," Ibiki stated as the blond let out a small chuckle.

"Is that so? So you are saying that a child, given the chance to become a ninja, a warrior who is expected to die for his village, may never taste the sweet burn of alcohol before they die a potentially brutal death?" the genjutsu user asked with a raised eyebrow.

"That is not my concern, now sit quietly or," suddenly the bear like man was interrupted by the door of the interrogation room opening to reveal the familiar robes of the Sandaime Hokage as he walked into the room, followed by Yamanaka Santa once again.

"Greetings Hokage-sama, what can I do for you this fine afternoon," Naruto asked mockingly as he sat completely unrestrained.

"Hello Naruto-kun," the village leader said as he took a seat opposite the blond, "we need to talk."

"That depends Hokage-sama, I will be open with you if you are open with me," Naruto stated calmly, not so much as flinching when the aged leader narrowed his eyes at him.

"This is not a game Naruto, I am now in a situation where you can either tell me everything you know or I will be forced to deal with you as an enemy," Hiruzen stated with a tone of complete seriousness.

"But what makes you think this isn't a game? We are both moving our pieces into place to checkmate each other… and at the moment I have all the pieces in this game," the heterochromatic blond stated with a vicious smirk.

"What are you saying?" it was an unusual sight for Ibiki, a child capable of making the Hokage serious enough to start dishing out threats… and even more unusual to see someone that would happily face down the aged leader believing they had the upper hand.

"Kufufufu, do you have any idea just how many spies Orochimaru has within these walls?" it was a simple question and one that caused the hokage to do a double take of what he had just heard, "the answer is twenty seven, I've already dealt with one of them so that makes another twenty six, would you care to name them all?" Naruto asked with a smirk as he watched the others in the room to look at him in disbelief.

"And where did you get this information from Uzumaki?" Ibiki decided to ask, intending on at least determining if the child's information was at least partially accurate.

"Where? Where I get my information from would require divulging my own secrets to Hokage-sama… and until he stops keeping secrets about me, from me, I am not prepared to let him know," Naruto stated calmly, causing the trio of Konoha nins to narrow their eyes at him, "however, I am prepared to reveal information that does not pertain to myself."

"Would you care to explain why that is the case?" Sarutobi asked as he grew more and more suspicious of the young blond.

"Kufufufu, you keep secrets concerning me, from me, therefore I will keep secrets concerning me, from you," the genjutsu master stated clearly, "but at the same time, I won't keep secrets that could threaten Konoha if left unspoken."

"If that is the case then give us a list and we'll deal with the traitors," the Hokage stated calmly as he motioned for Yamanaka Santa to give the boy a pen and paper.

"Very well, however I will only place twenty five names on this list," the blond stated calmly before the aged leader interrupted.

"I want EVERY name, do you understand?!"

"Oh I understand, however unless you can guarantee that you can send a team strong enough to defeat Kakashi-san in combat to take this last person, I refuse to let them know they've been discovered," Naruto stated with complete seriousness as he stared the Hokage in the eyes.

"Are you saying that the twenty sixth spy is on Kakashi's level?" the fire shadow asked with a hint of disbelief in his voice.

"Yes, despite his place within Konoha he is one of Orochimaru's greatest soldiers and his right hand man," the spiky haired youth stated calmly, it was almost disturbing for others in the room, the blond had gone from mocking and condescending, to co-operative and serious in such a short length of time.

"And why should we believe you?" Ibiki asked in complete seriousness as he tried to read the blond, once again only being capable of seeing that the boy was perfectly calm and at the very least, believed he was in control of the current situation.

"Do you have any better options?" it was a simple question but they all knew he was their only option to rid the village of its greatest traitor's spies.

It took several seconds before the Hokage spoke.

"Fine, I'll listen to what you are saying, however I want you to answer one question."

"I might answer but it depends on what your question is Hokage-sama," the small smirk lacing the blonds face told the Hokage that the blond wouldn't answer his question… but that didn't mean he wouldn't ask it.

"Why did you join Akatsuki?"

"Kufufufu, I had a use for them Hokage-sama, and for your information I betrayed them as soon as their usefulness expired," the blond stated with a sinister smile before the Hokage turned around and headed for the door, "and one last thing… I want a double vodka & lime with a slice of lemon."

The silence was deafening.

XXX XXX XXX

Outside of Konoha there was a large mansion. It was normally well guarded courtesy of the terror contained within its wall.

But the guards didn't expect to face a being that could overcome any defence as their very reality became confusion and fear.

The residents of the building all collapsed as their minds gave out to the intruder, his power beyond their comprehension as he calmly walked towards his target, a single large room were a single child was held prisoner, her power too great and uncontrolled for them to accept.

He however was not like them. He had experienced the horrors of every hell and knew that the power that she possessed came from the 'realm of hell', it's horrors nothing compared to the 'realm of humans'.

Finally reaching his destination, he calmly unlocked the door with a key he had 'borrowed' from the guard that now lay unconscious at the side of the hall, before entering the room.

The room was simple, a large circular space, with the only decorations being a large piano and several paintings propped up against the walls. The content of the paintings was dark, one depicted the village of Konoha consumed by fire, another showed a dark room with a dead person lying on a bed… and one other caught the eye of the intruder, a portrait of a young woman with dark hair being pierced by a ray of red light.

"I see you still hold a grudge against Kurenai-san, Yakumo-san," the calm intruder stated to the only other figure in the room, a young girl with light brown hair, kept in braids. She wore a simple blue kimono and sat calmly painting as the intruder walked further into the room.

The girl stayed silent as she continued to paint the scene she was working on, she didn't like visitors, all they ever did was bring her pain.

"If it wouldn't be too much trouble, I would like to speak with Ido now," and with that sentence, her conscious went blank.


	9. Chapter 9

Sarutobi Hiruzen couldn't help but feel scared, the child of the man that was both his successor and predecessor was supposed to grow up to be one of Konoha's most loyal ninja, so how had everything gone so wrong?

From what Santa had seen of Mizuki's memories the man had in fact been a traitor to Orochimaru… and the man was familiar with Naruto's alias, one of the snake sannin's former partners in Akatsuki, Rokudo Mukuro.

It genuinely scared the Hokage that a child could fool a group that consisted of nothing but S-rank criminals, the mere idea was ridiculous and yet Mizuki's memories told otherwise.

And then there was the boy's willingness to admit that he betrayed the group, if he was capable of betraying people like Orochimaru, Aka Suna no Sasori and others among that renown made him worry about the boy and his attitude towards Konoha.

He had initially been suspicious of the boy, having been gone for so long and possessing ninja skills at such a young age made the Sandaime concerned about what the boy had been doing over the years and more importantly, if he was returning as a spy for another village.

But now he was feeling even worse, if Naruto was spying on them it was not for a hidden village, but for a group of criminals.

How he wished he could receive reports from Itachi but if the raven haired boy was caught the entire operation would be blown, so the only way he could contact the boy was through Jiraiya and even that was a rare occurrence.

It would've been much easier if the boy wasn't as dangerous as he had managed to ascertain, but when ANBU cannot restrain a person with anything including chakra suppression seals, the opponent is obviously FAR more advanced than they could deal with.

So despite his wish that the boy was on their side, things just kept looking worse and worse. Then there was also the child's obsession with learning village secrets, the only thing that made him feel any better about that was that he was only looking for the ones involving himself, which drastically cut down the number of secrets he was asking for.

But they were still secrets and he wouldn't let someone he couldn't trust know such pieces of information.

The only advantage he had managed to get over the blond was a single list of names, but the problem was that he knew that one name was missing and despite everything, he couldn't help but feel the need to give into the blonds demand that a truly top class team of ANBU was to be sent for the one missing name on that list.

Despite what the boy had said, Hiruzen wasn't prepared to send out any teams if the strongest spy was not taken out at the same time, after all, if all but one spy is taken out, then the last one would be inclined to flee while the going was good instead of risk being captured later.

Finally making his decision, the Sandaime Hokage buzzed his secretary.

"Call Kakashi, Gai, Asuma and Kurenai, I have a mission for them."

XXX XXX XXX

Kurenai wasn't normally the sort of person you would find deep in thought however today was different. Yesterday she had seen for a fact that the student had surpassed the master, Naruto's genjutsu had completely overwhelmed her skills, if that had been a true fight she would've died then and there.

It was truly depressing that he had reached that level while she had reached a plateau, no matter how hard she tried she simply couldn't grow anymore and it was something that hurt her more than anything else, the idea that she had reached her prime.

It wouldn't have felt so bad if Naruto hadn't already surpassed her at the tender age of twelve but he had, he was nowhere near his prime and he was already capable of toying with not one, but three Jōnin at the same time.

Letting out a small sigh she proceeded to take a sip of her tea before preparing herself for whatever orders the ANBU heading towards her were going to pass onto her.

"Yūhi Kurenai, Hokage-sama wishes to speak with you," it was the only message an ANBU was allowed to pass onto a person without using code, mainly because all it did was let a person know that they were wanted for one reason or another.

"Okay, I'll be right there," and with that simple statement, the beautiful woman proceeded to finish her drink before disappearing in a swirl of leaves, her destination, the Hokage tower.

XXX XXX XXX

Kakashi could do nothing more than stare at a large memorial stone within one of the many training fields around the village, his mind wandering over the fact that his sensei's son had already shown himself to be a completely different person than both his parents.

The only thing he shared was their appearance and from what he could see, the boy didn't use his true appearance regularly.

What made things even more concerning for the man was how easily the boy had fooled his Sharingan. The legendary doujutsu was especially powerful when used against genjutsu users, being capable of seeing the chakra behind an illusion and allowing the user to essentially see through the technique, however Naruto had completely destroyed his ability to see through his illusions, it was something he had never experienced before and he simply didn't know how to fight against an illusionist of that calibre, that is if there was a way in the first place.

His mind drifted back to a time when he had tried to convince the blond to learn ninjutsu and the child had vehemently denied his attempts… and now he finally understood why.

The child had seen the strength of the art at such a young age and had come to master freeform illusions to a point where he could toy with the senses of three Jōnin and not have to break a sweat at the prospect of fighting them.

If anything, it had hurt his pride more than anything. A child no older than thirteen had completely dominated their encounter and he, along with two other Jōnin had been powerless against him.

Despite his mind being deep in thought he was still more than aware enough to notice an ANBU appear at the edge of the training ground, though he gave no indication that he had detected the woman.

"Hatake Kakashi, Hokage-sama requires your presence… immediately and I am more than happy to drag you to his office if I need to," the ANBU stated, causing the cycloptic man to turn his head and stare at her blankly, he knew the woman from his days in ANBU and was well aware that she would happily take any chance she had to stab him if he was late.

"(sigh) fine," and with that single word, the man vanished in a shunshin, the simple fact that a member of ANBU had been sent to collect him showed that it was a serious matter and the serious Kakashi was a completely different person to the normal Kakashi.

XXX XXX XXX

"Yosh! Rī my beautiful student! If you cannot kick the log five thousand times I will climb the Hokage monument with my right index finger five times!" the call was loud, as was expected from the training ground used my Maito Gai's genin squad.

"Yosh! I will join you in climbing the Hokage monument with just my right index finger five times! And if I cannot do that I will run a hundred laps around Konoha with a boulder strapped to my back!" Rokku Rī was a young boy that was far too enthusiastic about his sensei than many people would accept as being healthy, however he had his reasons for admiring his Jōnin sensei.

Unfortunately the rest of the team wasn't as happy about their bonding.

Maito Gai was a man of similar age to Kakashi, however the two couldn't have been more different. While Kakashi was laid back and calm, Gai was extremely active and excitable. He was also known for his… unusual dress sense of green spandex with a standard Konoha flak jacket worn over the one piece jumpsuit.

He also kept his pitch black hair in a bowl cut while his eyebrows almost jumped off his face.

Unfortunately his student had decided to copy him… which made for quite a disturbing sight when the boy had eyes that looked like they would be more at home on a bug than a person, not that Gai cared, after all, Rī was his precious student and exemplified all that was positive with the world.

His excitement ended however when he noticed an ANBU at the edge of the training field, a look of seriousness his students had never seen plastering his face upon witnessing the black ops member, if ANBU were wanting him then it was a serious matter, the Hokage wouldn't call a sensei from their team for nothing, he knew that much for certain.

"Maito Gai, Hokage-sama needs to speak with you," the masked ninja stated seriously, earning a curt nod from the taijutsu master before he turned to face all of his students.

"My precious students, continue putting your all into your training for today, I will not lie, whatever it is Hokage-sama needs to speak with me about is probably important, there is no guarantee I will return, however I trust that you are capable enough to continue your missions without me," the dark haired man stated with an air of absolute seriousness they had never once heard from the man.

Before any of the children had time to react, the green clad man had vanished in a swirl of leaves, despite how things appeared, they all knew that Gai was better than an average Chūnin in both nin and genjutsu, his only reason for not using them being his love of taijutsu as opposed to ability.

At the same time however, they couldn't bring themselves to believe what the man had told them… Rī just hoped that the man wasn't being reassigned, he had heard of such occurrences before.

XXX XXX XXX

Taking a deep drag of his cigarette before releasing the smoke, Sarutobi Asuma continued his walk to the barbeque stand he frequented. He was a dark haired man with a small goatee decorating his chin, while the standard Konoha uniform covered his body from the elements, with the only difference from the standard Chūnin garb being the small sash he wore around his waist with the kanji for fire decorating it.

Going to the barbeque was something he had grown up doing, his father taking him regularly with his generation of the Nara, Akimichi and Yamanaka clan heirs.

Doing so was a normal occurrence for the Sarutobi clan, after all, even before the founding of Konoha the four clans had always been allies, the Sarutobi clan being the older and more experienced had always been the ones that had hosted the ceremony where the heirs of the other three clans would take their place as the clan heads.

That was a tradition that was going to be kept alive even now. Asuma had been informed that he would be given the new generation of heirs to train and eventually fulfil the standard practice of giving the heirs new earrings to represent their coming of age and their new position as the true leaders of their respective clans.

The chances were that the children wouldn't realise the significance of those earrings until they were older and their parents had truly handed the reigns over to them.

Knowing that he was going to be the person responsible for their growth, Asuma was anything but happy, unlike his father he didn't feel suited to such responsibility, his status as a Jōnin was pushed onto him courtesy of his skills, he would've been happy staying a Chūnin but in the end, he wasn't a Chūnin anymore and he had to take the responsibility of being a Jōnin and even more importantly, he had to take the responsibility of being a sensei as well now.

Before he had even reached viewing distance from the stand, he noticed a familiar presence just off the road and if his senses were right, it was calling him over.

Deciding that whatever it was the black ops member wanted him for was probably serious, he moved off the main road and into the shadows where the ANBU was waiting for him.

"Hello Asuma," the voice said from behind its mask, earning a sigh off the other man.

"What does tousan want?" there was no love lost in the Jōnin's voice as he asked the simple question.

"I don't know, all we were told was to get you and select others," letting out another sigh, Asuma vanished with a shunshin, leaving the ANBU alone on the street once again before taking to the roof tops.

XXX XXX XXX

The Hokage couldn't do anything except wait for the last member of the impromptu team to arrive, surprisingly it wasn't going to be Kakashi for a change, this time the last to arrive would be Gai, probably because he was the furthest away from the Hokage tower so it took a little longer for him to receive the message.

It didn't take long for the swirl of leaves created by a shunshin appeared alongside the taijutsu enthusiast, his expression deadly serious for a change as he prepared himself for whatever mission the aged leader had for him.

The look on his face only grew even more dangerous as he took note of his teammates for whatever mission they were being assigned to.

"Now that you are all here, we recently apprehended someone, they are currently co-operating though to what extent or for what reason we are uncertain," Hiruzen stated with the voice he reserved for very serious situations, "they have given us a list of spies within Konoha, each of them are apparently working for Orochimaru."

Immediately alarm bells were ringing in the gathered Jōnin's minds as the name of one of the three greatest traitors in Konoha's history was mentioned, if they were dealing with something concerning that man…

"Unfortunately this person has made it clear that he is unwilling to share the name of Orochimaru's most dangerous spy under the pretences that he is too strong for a standard team to apprehend," listening to what the aged leader was saying all four of the Jōnin came to the same conclusion, they were here to both retrieve the information concerning this spy and capture them, "I believe it's time we paid the 'informant' a visit… let's just hope he hands over the information."

Quietly following the Sandaime, the team couldn't help but feel slightly nervous, anything involving Orochimaru was bad news and they were about to get thrown into the deep end involving the man's spy network within the village. They realised that if anything they were the four most qualified outside of the Hokage himself to deal with something like this, but at the same time it didn't make them feel any better about it.

None of the group were surprised when they were lead to T&I, after all, it was were all information was extracted from others, even if they were loyal to Konoha it was the safest place for any information to be passed around.

However two of them were extremely surprised when the door was opened to reveal a familiar mop of blond hair resting its face in its hands in a posture that seemed out of place from their previous encounter with it. The posture also made the Hokage tense slightly, it looked less like the defiant child he had encountered last time and more like someone that was tired and annoyed.

Putting his feelings to the side, the oldest Sarutobi stepped forward, making sure to allow the blond to see the team he had assembled for the capture of his treacherous students right hand man, hoping that the boy would give them a name this time.

"Is this team acceptable?" it was a simple question and one that showed that the old man was both annoyed that he had to bring a team consisting purely of Jōnin to the boy… however what happened next made another emotion appear in his head.

"I'm sorry, Uzumaki Naruto is not here right now, please leave a message after the beep… beep," the tone of voice displayed irritation and hate, something the aged leader hadn't expected to hear from the boy, it was when the child lifted his head for all to see that fear gripped him.

The entire group readied themselves for battle as they saw the change in the boys eyes, gone were the azure orb and kanji imprinted eyes they had seen when he returned and now in their place were two slitted crimson orbs they had all seen only once before… on the head of the Kyūbi.

Seeing the group in front of it take up defensive stances, the Kyūbi couldn't help but let out a sigh of annoyance, why had the child kept its chakra locked away, as it stood right now he was completely defenceless and had four Jōnin and a Kage looking straight at it as it could do nothing more than sit and talk.

Of course it was certain the child had expected this to happen, the chances are that no matter what it did it would all fall in place for the child, who had probably predicted exactly what the fox would do, including thinking about the fact that he had predicted what it would do.

It still wished the boy would get back soon, he didn't like the idea of having to talk to these ninja longer than he had to.

"What have you done with Naruto fox!" it may have been phrased like a question but everyone knew otherwise, it was a demand and the result for denying that demand would hurt… a lot.

"I haven't done anything to him, he's the one that decided to do something else and leave me bodysitting for him," the statement made everyone in the room pause, the kitsune made it sound like it was a normal occurrence for him.

"What do you mean bodysitting?" Kurenai asked, unfamiliar with the term.

"It means he's left his body and is leaving the Kyūbi to look after it," Asuma told her, familiar with the term courtesy of his knowledge concerning the Yamanaka clan.

"That's right, the gaki has such a loose connection with his body now that he tends to spend more time in other peoples bodies than his own," immediately the Hokage's eyes widened as he finally realised the reality of the situation.

If Naruto could enter other peoples bodies then he could access things a normal person couldn't.

"Can you tell me if there is anyone in Konoha that he possesses?" the question was simple and the answer was even simpler…. And it scared the man more than the fact the boy left the bijū in control of his body.

"Yes… there are many including someone named Mitokado Homura," all the Jōnin tensed upon hearing that name, one of the Hokages advisors was prone to being possessed by the child, if that was the case then, just how much did the boy know about Konoha and it's dirty little secrets, "he might not have told you but there is not a single secret of this village that he doesn't know thanks to that man."

"If that's the case then why is he trying to get me to tell him some of these secrets?" the aged leader asked suspiciously.

"He doesn't care about the secrets, he cares about the trust involved in sharing those secrets… despite what you might think he is still loyal to the village, he left to learn, improve and research, unlike you he uses a power older than the bijū ourselves," the red eyed beast of chakra told him calmly, "and the only one that can truly destroy us."

Shock coursed through all the ninja present as they heard a bijū admit that there was a power that could destroy it… and that its host possessed that power.

"What is this power? How do we harness it?" the Hokage hated to admit it but gaining access to an ability of such power was something that would guarantee the villages place as the greatest of the ninja villages, being capable of destroying bijū outright would be jinchūriki far less intimidating.

"It is called the dying will flame and how to harness it… you'll have to ask the gaki about that. Another thing, using it to neutralise a jinchūriki would work against you, it only destroys our minds, not our chakra, so all you would do would be give a ninja the chakra of a bijū to use at their leisure," hearing this the Hokage grew less excited, in order to learn how to use this power he would need to speak with the blond once his mind returned… which raised another question.

"What is Naruto doing right now anyway?"

"If I heard right he's preparing an apprentice to train, don't know exactly what he's doing however," the statement from the bijū made the group blink several times as they tried to figure out exactly who the blond could possibly want to train… until a certain sentence popped into the only woman's head.

"Dammit!" the sudden outburst almost made the men jump when they heard the genjutsu mistress shout, "Yakumo! He's after Yakumo!"

Immediately the eyes of the others in the room widened as they finally realised what sort of problems that could cause, didn't he know that the girl was possessed by a demon?

"Isn't that the girl possessed by that Ido thing?" Kyūbi asked causing the ninja to face it expectantly, "I remember he said it was something from the realm of hell and easy to deal with."

Suddenly the group looked at the being in surprise, from what they could tell it didn't really know anything about Ido whereas it's host did… and for some reason the boy felt no fear towards a demon that could trick the body into inflicting damage to itself.

"Does he have any idea what Ido is capable of?" the red eyed woman asked it with a hint of panic in her voice as it simply glanced at her before replying.

"Of course he does, otherwise he wouldn't have even considered facing it, let alone in someone else's body," hearing this the group couldn't help but freeze, Naruto knew exactly what the demon was capable of and still considered it no threat at all… either he was completely stupid, or monstrously powerful.

XXX XXX XXX

This was all wrong. It shouldn't have been happening but it was, this monster before it was completely overwhelming it in its own forte, it shouldn't have been possible but it was happening anyway.

Ido remembered how it had managed to slip past the curtain that separated the realm of hell and the human world, it had taken up possessing select members of a large family that possessed minor amounts of talent in the art of genjutsu, it would amplify its hosts genjutsu in exchange for devouring their life force, reducing their bodies to mere shadows of what they should have been.

It's power had been far beyond even the greatest of their genjutsu users, until it had been sealed. It was just a minor problem, it couldn't amplify its hosts powers or possess her for a few years however it had always been able to steal the girls life force, so she had ended up being just a weak little girl with no future.

But now, now it was scared, the crimson eye with the single kanji that stared straight at it, ignoring the body it was currently possessing, bore deep into its soul as it started to crawl away in fear of the demon before it. The more it stepped back, the more the demon stepped forward, the gap closing slightly with each step it took.

Finally Ido came to a stall, there was a wall in the way, there was nowhere left to run, there was no illusion that could capture its tormentor as he slowly and deliberately took each stride with a grace that looked like a cat stalking a mouse… despite its original belief that this monster would be just another worthless human, it now knew that the man before it considered it nothing more than a rodent to be toyed with.

The being from hell couldn't stop itself from flinching as the man before it extended its arm and placed a single hand on its head…. Then its world exploded in pain as it felt itself burning, it's very soul being consumed by an indigo flame with hints of red and orange that suddenly appeared around the monsters hand, it didn't take long for the pain to die as its soul finally gave in to the fire.

Naruto couldn't help but let out a small laugh at the 'demon' he had just destroyed. To think that Ido had been feared by the Hokage and all it could do was use illusions that could trick the body into inflicting damage to itself.

Such a simple genjutsu would never defeat someone that had experienced the realm of hell and come out alive.

Turning the formerly possessed girl over, he proceeded to look at her now peacefully sleeping face before a small knife materialised in his hand. A simple prick on the back of her hand was more than enough to do what he wanted, so with a gentle action, he proceeded to open one of her eyes as his eye took the kanji for six and with a pained grunt, he finished what he came to do before abandoning the body he had borrowed for this operation.

XXX XXX XXX

The Hokage was about to ask the bijū another question when the blonds face suddenly changed its expression before the crimson slits were replaced with the eyes he had first seen in the boy.

"Ah, Hokage-sama, I hope you found my substitute pleasant enough to converse with," and the genjutsu master was back in control of his own body once again.

"Indeed, I hate to admit this, but Kyūbi was actually more accommodating than you," it was a simple statement that made the blond let out a small laugh that worked well in disturbing the Jōnin present in the room.

"I see, so how much did the furball tell you? Quite a lot I presume," once again the eyes of the other people in the room widened slightly at the fact the blond had expected the fox to be loose lipped and still let it take control for a length of time.

"May I ask you something Naruto, are we right in assuming you have confronted Yakumo?" this time the question was made by Kurenai as she tried to bring her mind to rest about the girl she had once been assigned to train while Hinata was busy in the academy.

"Not really, I confronted Ido, not Yakumo," the group blinked at that statement as they began to wonder what had happened, "and for your information, I was extremely disappointed in the strength of such a feared spirit."

"Disappointed?" Asuma asked in confusion upon hearing the word, why would someone be disappointed about Ido?

"Yes, I was expecting it to be significantly stronger than it was," once again several eyes widened at what the boy had said, if what they had heard was right then Naruto hadn't had any difficulty in defeating the demon of the Kurama clan, "now, I believe we've talked enough on the subject of Ido, I think it would make more sense for us to talk about what you originally came here for… the spy I refused to name."

Immediately everyone in the room schooled their expressions as they began to listen to the boy, hoping that whatever he said would prove to be accurate.

"I take it that this is the team you are intending on dealing with this particular spy, am I correct?" receiving a nod of confirmation from the Hokage Naruto let a small smirk grace his lips at the line up, four Jōnin, one a specialist of ninjutsu, another a taijutsu specialist, a genjutsu specialist and a former member of the Shugonin Jūnishi.

"Well, one of the most important pieces of information I will give you is their skills, they are a medic not far off the skill of Tsunade, though he gained his skill from experimenting on people as opposed to helping them," the group flinched upon hearing this, someone that had reached that level of skill in medical technique from experimenting had obviously done a lot of harm to his 'patients'.

"He has two main jutsu you should beware of, the Shikon no Jutsu and In'yu Shōmetsu," upon hearing both of these techniques both Kakashi and the Hokage widened their eyes at the implications, whoever this person was they would be extremely difficult to take alive.

"What do those jutsu do?" Gai asked, knowing full well that at least two of them knew what those techniques involved.

"(sigh) Shikon no Jutsu allows a person to reanimate corpses and In'yu Shōmetsu is a regeneration technique," Kakashi stated earning a nod of understanding from the taijutsu master.

"So what is this guy's name?" this time Asuma decided to ask the most important question.

"Yakushi Kabuto, the adopted son of the chief medical officer."


	10. Chapter 10

His method was slow and meticulous, he made no incision beyond what was necessary and his patients were operated on without a single slip or wasted move.

The medics watching him could do nothing more than stare in amazement at the genin's talent in the operating theatre, not a single onlooker knowing of the true difficulty the boy was having with this patient.

It was not the operation itself that the surgeon found difficult… it was staying his hand and curing the person on the table instead of dissecting them. Oh how he hated his time in Konoha, how he was unable to give in to his impulses like he could under Orochimaru. Konoha treated the few pieces of his work they had found as the work of a monster, something that needed to be eradicated, while his master encouraged his experiments, even going so far as to supply him with test subjects whenever he was in his true home.

Finally finishing with his patient, the silver haired boy proceeded to calmly leave the operating theatre and remove the apron and hair net he had been required to wear while working on the man.

"Yakushi Kabuto?" came a questioning call, causing the boy to stop and look behind himself, immediately forcing himself to not tense as he looked at the forms of four of Konoha's top Jōnin, each one of them gazing at him with glacier like eyes.

"Yes, how may I help you?" he asked as politely as he could, he wasn't a fool by any chance but he knew that he was more likely to worm his way out of this situation if he kept himself unsuspicious.

"Would you be so kind as to come with us?" Kakashi asked the boy, he didn't look like anything special, his only noticeable features being his silver hair, the large circular glasses adorning his nose and the dark purple clothing he wore, however none of the group would judge him as such, a truly dangerous ninja is one that you underestimate.

"May I enquire why I am to leave with you? My sensei is not with you and I am currently in the middle of a shift for the iryō division," Kabuto stated, causing the leader of the capture team to look at the boy seriously.

"No, if you won't come with us willingly, we will take you by force," the one eyed Jōnin stated in a deadly serious tone, letting the silver haired spy know that there was no room for arguments.

It was now certain, he had been caught. He had been positive that he had been found out as soon as he saw the group that had called him but now there was no other possibility… the only question going through his mind, should he try to run or should he simply surrender?

He had no illusions that he could even come close to defeating the group, any one of its members yes, but all four of them, even his master would be cautious of fighting this group and given that he was one of the Sannin and once a candidate for the position of Yondaime Hokage meant his strength was well and truly immense.

Thinking over his options, the silver haired genin did the only response that made any sense, he surrendered. Even if they took him he was good enough at acting to keep up his façade, so the only problem he would have would be if the Hokage sent a Yamanaka to sift through his memories, in which case he would be completely defenceless.

However he knew that the Hokage rarely sent a Yamanaka unless he was concerned about the victims abilities and within Konoha he was nothing more than a genin that couldn't achieve the rank of Chūnin no matter how hard he tried, something that even the other spies in the village thought.

Beyond that, if he kept up his act then the seal placed on him by Sasori would probably be found and he would be able to get out of any danger by letting them convince themselves that he didn't know he spied on the village for his master.

He calmly walked between the Jōnin as they escorted him to the Hokages tower while random civilians stopped to watch the procession, making the silver haired genin accept that he would have to explain to everyone that it was either a mistake or that he had been 'adjusted' to act as a spy against his will.

By the time the group had arrived at T&I, he was confident that there would be at the most, only minor complications, both he and his master were too cautious for something like this to catch them.

The group of Jōnin led the teenager into a cell, his mind beginning to wonder if he had underestimated the villages interrogation department as his limbs were bound and a chakra suppression seal was attached to the back of his neck.

Once again he began to question his circumstances as the Jōnin moved to the corners of the room instead of leaving it like he expected them to. His heart started to beat faster than it normally did, his mind beginning to wonder if he had unknowingly left some form of clue concerning his status or strength which the Hokage had managed to pick up on.

He stopped thinking when the door opened, revealing the aged leader and alongside him… a man with blue eyes and long blond hair tied into a ponytail, the signature of a Yamanaka, the one thing he had wanted to avoid.

It was then that he realised that he would've been better choosing to flee, if he had run then he might have escaped or caused some form of harm to his pursuers but right now, he was genuinely defenceless and he knew more about Orochimaru than anyone.

A curt nod was made by the aged leader as he faced the blond next to him and without a single word, the Yamanaka proceeded to work his magic.

XXX XXX XXX

Naruto couldn't help but feel a hint of satisfaction as he calmly sat in his cell. He had met Kabuto on several occasions and knew that the boy wouldn't risk a full out battle with four fully fledged Jōnin when he had no reason to believe the Hokage knew how skilled he was and would underestimate his abilities.

Of course that probably would've happened if it hadn't been for his influence. If there was one thing he loved more than making a plan was completely crushing the plans of others, especially those of the two men he considered his rivals in scheming, it gave him a feeling of superiority over the dubious duo as he liked to called them.

Of course they also tried to foil his own, however they simply lacked the intelligence to even determine what his plots were and usually just walked straight into traps when they attempted to thwart him, something that amused him to no end as he simply sat back and enjoyed the chaos from the comfy seat of a random birds body.

Of course he would have to gather more intelligence once the cleansing was finished, he would have to learn if 'Hebi-chan' would change his plan to invade Konoha during the next Chūnin exams or if he would be arrogant and continue with his plan despite his intelligence network within the village being completely decimated.

He was soon snapped out of his musings as the door to his cell opened, revealing the aged leader, a look of total seriousness on his face as he proceeded to walk towards the desk the boy sat at before sitting down.

"Is there anything else that you are aware of concerning Orochimaru?" Sarutobi asked the boy, his expression taking a steely resolve as he looked straight at the boys eyes.

"Well let's see… there is his planned invasion however that might no longer be in the works when he discovers his spy network within the village has been destroyed," the heterochromatic blond stated with the same sort of tone one would expect to hear when talking about the weather.

"I see… may I ask you something?" the old man responded, earning a small chuckle off the boy.

"You may ask, however I may not answer depending on your question," it was good enough for the Hokage, he didn't expect to get the blonds word on anything, however this was one question that he needed to hear the answer to before he made any commitments.

"Why would you ally with Konoha? What is in it for you?" suddenly a small smile, not a smirk but a smile, graced the boys lips, an action that shocked the older man more than anything else the boy had done.

"Nothing. However there are several people that have a place in my heart and every one of them loves Konoha, so protecting it, is protecting my loved ones," Naruto explained calmly, earning a pair of wide eyes from the old man, the blond had admitted that there were people he cared about and that they cared about Konoha.

"Is that so…" the Sandaime said before letting out a long sigh, "so far you've proven yourself to be at least a little trustworthy, you are free to go."

"I answered your question, now I would request that you answer my question," the spiky haired blond said, staying in his seat, causing the aged leader to narrow his eyes slightly, was the boy trying to take advantage of the small amount of trust he had earned already?

"I won't guarantee an answer."

"But of course, you are still concerned about your villages secrets but fret not, my question is simply about what is going to happen with the genin teams since I was removed from the exam before the end?" the simple question earned a small sigh of relief from the older man, he had expected the question to be more… sensitive than that.

"I suppose you could be placed in a team, though it would raise the question of why a person capable of restraining three Jōnin is still a genin," Hiruzen muttered, he didn't want to give the boy a higher rank because doing so would give him access to secrets and the aged leader didn't fully trust the Kyūbi to be telling the truth about the boys ability to possess others, he would have to have Santa look in Yakumo's mind before he was certain of that fact.

"If you are unhappy with that then you can place my new apprentice in a team in my place, without Ido draining her strength she can be made into a proper ninja with a bit of training… and I can be quite the task master," the genjutsu master stated calmly, making the leader look at him suspiciously.

"And what would you do in that scenario?" the robed figure asked, unsure of what to make of the blonds proposal.

"Yakumo is my apprentice, Kurenai is the sensei that I have surpassed… I have two people I can pass certain skills onto right now," the boy couldn't help but let out a mirth filled laugh upon seeing the man he once considered a grandfather figure go wide eyed at that statement.

"I thought you said you wouldn't let us know your skills?" it was an expected question and Naruto couldn't help but accept that it was a good one given how secretive he was being.

"I said 'certain' skills, I have no intention of passing on ALL of my skills, merely one I promised sensei we'd work together on," it was a perfectly truthful statement, even after more than six years he still remembered that promise and now, he could finally teach his tutor. He knew that with this single trick she would easily become more than three times more dangerous than she currently was.

"I see… well then I will accept your suggestion, however you will just have to remain outside of Konoha's military roster if we do it this way, is that alright with you?" once again, the aged leader tried to understand what the boy was up to as the boy let out a small smirk.

"Hokage-sama, the entire reason behind going to the academy in the first place was to get to Mizuki, nothing more, nothing less. My status within Konoha is unimportant to me," the heterochromatic blond stated as he proceeded to rise from his seat and walk past the old man.

"Very well then, Kurama Yakumo will be placed as a genin under the tutelage of Yūhi Kurenai, her teammates shall be Hyūga Hinata and Haruno Sakura, are you certain you wish to be among that team? After all, you may get a reputation as a pervert if you are," the old man couldn't help but feel better, he had finally managed to get one up on the blond, however his revelry was short lived.

A small smirk was all that the man saw before the boy was covered in a mist like cloud of chakra, which soon cleared to reveal a tall woman with waist length wavy blond hair, a perfect complexion and an ornate dress in a style the aged leader had never seen before.

"Would I still attain such a reputation if I was to join them like this?" the voice was mesmerising, possessing qualities that filled it with a sense of beauty and status that not even the Daimyo was worthy of the definition of perfection that stood in front of him. The Hokage could do nothing but stare in amazement as he studied the henge, trying his hardest to keep control of himself as he stared at every inch of the figure that stood before him. Out of everything that shocked the man the most was the eyes. It may sound simple to place an illusion over a person's eyes, however to make the illusion not only look genuine but also be filled with emotion and grace was a completely different thing that even the greatest genjutsu masters had difficulty with.

As suddenly as the image had appeared, it was replaced by the boys true appearance, a mirth filled smirk gracing his lips as the aged leader snapped out of his trance and finally took notice of the boy once again.

"Farewell for now Hokage-sama, I may speak with you at a later date," the young boy said as he finally left the room, leaving the stunned leader on his own within the interrogation cell.

XXX XXX XXX

Sakura couldn't help but feel her heart beat slightly faster as she watched her mother stare at a small bag within Naruto's apartment. She wouldn't have felt so nervous if it wasn't for the fact that the bag hadn't been there yesterday.

She watched as her mother searched through the small backpack, pulling out sets of clothes that would fit a boy of her age, several sets of casual clothes, several formal Kimono's and even a couple of pristine business suits.

"You said he came to your class earlier… where is he now?" Isako asked with barely contained tears in her eyes, the boy she had grown to love as a son had finally returned and he was nowhere to be seen.

"I don't know, he was supposed to take Mizuki-sensei to the nurse's office but he never came back," the young pinkette stated as calmly as she could, she had finally seen her big brother again and the last thing she did was beat him to a pulp in anger… had she scared him off by doing that? Would he return to them after she had been so vicious to him.

Shaking her head she recalled another part of the day, he had simply stood and let her unleash her anger and frustration on him, he hadn't tried to run or defend himself, he had simply stood by and let her hit him… a lot. It hadn't been like she had experienced with some people who were simply paralysed in fear of her, he had literally been completely unconcerned about her hits, as if he had experienced much worse.

Thinking over it, it shouldn't have been surprising, he had been living outside the village for nearly five years, the chances of him not being put in a life or death situation seemed awfully slim and she was sure that he had felt fear at some point during his journey.

But despite realising that she couldn't help but feel a pit of dread in the bottom of her stomach when she thought about why the boy had vanished, he had done so once before and he had completely vanished for about five years, so would he do the same this time as well?

"I see my expectations of you two being here was correct," the call was calm and collected as it made the statement, causing the two in the apartment to turn around in an instant to see the boy that had once lived there.

Sakura could do nothing more than stand in the room, her mind processing the fact that he had returned from wherever he had been… and the fact her mother was currently crushing him in a hug.

"Naruto-chan… why?" it was all the woman could manage to say as the tears she had held back for so long started flowing, the boy she thought of as a son was finally back and she wasn't going to let him go again.

"I had some things I wanted to do outside of Konoha… and I couldn't do them if I was being watched all the time, after all, I have my secrets to keep," the young boy explained, causing even more tears to escape the woman's eyes, she didn't like the idea of him keeping secrets but she knew better than anyone that the boy wouldn't be dissuaded from keeping them.

"What happened back at the academy?" Sakura asked, hoping that the boy would at least tell her why he hadn't come back from taking Mizuki to the nurse's office.

"Right now that information is probably classified however I can tell you this, I am not going to be a genin yet," the whiskered blond said calmly, causing the girl to suddenly gain a look of disbelief on her features, how could he not be allowed to be a genin when he was so strong? "as it stands right now the Hokage believes I am too strong to be a genin however he doesn't trust me enough to make me a higher rank, so for now I am simply going to be here, working as I please."

The expressions on the faces of the people he considered family couldn't be described as anything except pure shock, why didn't the Hokage trust him? had he done something while he was away that they didn't know about?

"W-why doesn't Hokage-sama trust you? Did you do something bad when you were away?" Isako asked, she simply couldn't understand why the aged leader wouldn't trust the boy.

"He doesn't know what I did when I was away, so he doesn't know if I'm here as a spy or and actually loyal to this village," he explained, causing a look of understanding on the older woman's face before it was replaced with an expression of confusion.

"But why doesn't he believe what you've told him?" it was a simple question and the look of mirth that filled his face surprised her slightly as he gave his answer.

"Because I haven't told him what I was doing," the looks of shock that appeared on the females faces was probably what ancient books referred to as 'a Kodak moment', something that the blond wouldn't be prepared to forget anytime soon, the sheer amusement he received from the expressions was simply that great.

"B-b-b-but why? Why don't do you just tell him and be over with it?" this time it was Sakura that asked the question, her mother still in too much shock to formulate the question herself.

"Because he isn't being open with me… he never has and I will not act open with him until he stops keeping secrets from me," the answer was simple and the two knew that there was some form of conflict between the boy and the Hokage now that he had made his statement.

"Wait, what sort of secrets are we talking about here?" the pinkette asked, she knew that keeping secrets was something that all ninja did, so why should the aged leader be any different with her Aniki.

"The ones involving me," suddenly the oldest in the room widened her eyes as she wondered what the boy knew about himself to make him distrust the aged leader so much, "for example, he knows who my parents are but refuses to tell me."

Immediately confusion dominated the room, why would the Hokage hide a child from the identity of his parents? It didn't seem like something that should be done, they both thought that every child had the right to know the identity of their family.

"It is only secrets that I SHOULD be privy to that I want him to be open with me about, however he is a stubborn old goat and refuses to budge on his decisions to keep these things secret from me," he could barely contain his laughter when he saw the looks of sheer shock that became present on the other occupants faces when he made his jibe at the Hokage, there weren't many people that would talk about him like that after all.

"Now, could you please let go of me Kaasan?" it was a very simple request and all it earned was the older woman's arms squeezing him even tighter, earning a small amount of discomfort from the blond.

"Not unless you promise you won't leave again," Sakura couldn't help but feel sad upon hearing her mother's words, it was a painful reminder that the blond had only just come back into their lives and that they didn't know if he was going to stay.

"I cannot promise that… the best I can do is promise that I won't leave like I did before, that I'll tell you the next time I leave and that I will not be gone for as long either," he knew he couldn't promise her that he wouldn't leave at all, if he became a ninja or even a private mercenary, he would have to leave the village on missions, plus there were still places he wanted to visit to see if he could discover anymore history from a time before the bijū, the only reason he had returned was because he had completed his primary objective of collecting the six hell rings and had decided that five years away from home had been enough already.

"Kaasan, if he becomes a ninja he'll have to leave, so just let him go," Sakura tried to get her mother to accept the boys words, however she knew that the woman wouldn't accept his statement easily, she was a civilian after all.

"Yes, let me go and you can be the second people on the continent to taste some of the recipes I've discovered on my journey," that immediately caused the women to look at him in confusion as he gave them a warm smile.

"What do you mean by that?" Sakura asked as she wondered what the boy was talking about, how could they be the second people on the continent to taste the recipes he gathered while travelling?

"These recipes are NOT ones I tasted before I cooked them myself, after all, the books I found them in are ancient and took quite a significant amount of hard work to simply discover what all the ingredients are, let alone how to cook these recipes," once again the people he considered family could only look at him in surprise when he told them that piece of information, was he saying that these recipes were so old that he only learned them because he had found some ancient texts?

"Now, shall I start preparing our meal?" and for the first time since they had their reunion, Isako released the boy, who gave her a warm smile before heading to his kitchen to prepare a very simple recipe from Italy.

XXX XXX XXX

The Kurama residence was in chaos, they knew that someone had arrived and completely decimated them with genjutsu alone, something that truly made them furious since the only clan in Konoha that was supposed to match up against them in that field was dead.

However they refused to let it show now, they had an important visitor who apparently knew the person that had so effortlessly dealt with them. The man had been detained as soon as the guards had woken up, their minds wandering over the possibilities of what had happened to leave everyone including the intruder and Yakumo unconscious, surely someone must have been conscious at the end but there was only one intruder and he had been out cold.

The Hokage had to admit, seeing the entire Kurama clan laying in blissful unconsciousness was a sight to behold and a true testament to the power of the intruder, however he wasn't here to see what the boy had done with the clan but what he had done with the young heir that housed the demonic entity known as Ido.

Once again he was accompanied by Yamanaka Santa, despite being too weak to be granted the rank of Jōnin, the man possessed immense skill with his clan techniques, rivalled only by Yamanaka Inoichi himself.

He stood calmly as he watched the blond haired man sifting through the mind of the child, before he once again opened his eyes and turned to give the aged leader his report.

"Hokage-sama, it would appear as though Ido is no longer contained within the Kurama heir," the shock that was immediately present on the Hokages face was something that no one would dare laugh at, the man was known for being calm, collected and extremely Knowledgeable, if something could shock him then it didn't bode well for anyone else, "furthermore it appears as though… well I'm not sure how to put this but it almost seems like the Uzumaki child has… well, it's almost like he has created a permanent link between their minds, one he can utilize at any time."

Silence reigned before the aged leader decided to ask a simple question, "what makes you certain that the link is with Naruto?"

"I managed to access the link and the mind I ended up in is definitely Uzumaki-sans, the decoration was exactly the same so unless it was a trick by Ido that used my own memories against me, I am almost certain that mind was the same one that Inoichi-sama failed to infiltrate," the statement was serious and showed that the man was truly scared of whatever the boy had done to completely dominate the clan heads mind.

"Do you think you could infiltrate his mind using this method?" the Hokage asked, if Santa was capable of using this link to his advantage then…

"I'm afraid not, as soon as I entered the link he spoke to me, warned me that he was only letting me leave because he had expected someone to find that link, however if anyone tries to use it again they will face the same fate as Inoichi-sama," the explanation didn't bode well for the men, they both knew that the boy was obviously far too dangerous to try and read his mind under any circumstances now.

There had been the slight glimmer of hope when they had discovered the link but it had immediately been stamped out by the child that possessed skills far greater than anything they had ever come across before.

"Well I guess there is nothing we can do, Yakumo is no longer a danger but we don't know a thing about the threat Naruto presents to the village… except that he is even stronger than a demon," the Hokage said, earning a small nod off the blond that stood at his side.

XXX XXX XXX

Isako and Sakura couldn't understand it. The meal they were eating was so simple and yet, it was just so tasty.

Apparently it was called 'Pizza' and was once a regular meal all over the world, he wouldn't tell them if he knew how big the world was but they could see the mirth in his eyes, so they knew he knew and couldn't help but feel a spark of annoyance at the boy and his new menu.

From what they could tell he had made the whole thing from scratch, meaning that he possessed at least a little bit of cooking skills even if the meal was simple and quick.

From what they had heard though, there were several dishes that he had difficulty with, not because of the preparation but because of a severe lack of ingredients present on the continent they currently lived.

Of course they were certainly interested when they heard that some of these ingredients would be available if people simply knew how to prepare them, apparently something called ham was a specially prepared version of pork that was supposed to have a completely different taste.

Despite everything though, they couldn't help but feel happy, they finally had the young boy back in their lives and from the looks of things, he wasn't going to be leaving them again.

Both had to admit, it had been a good day for a change.


	11. Chapter 11

Sakura couldn't help but let out a sigh of exasperation as she sat in the classroom that had been where she had been bored out of her mind on countless occasions over her years as an academy student. She had hoped to graduate with her aniki however that idea had been completely crushed the previous night when he had informed her that he wasn't going to be an official ninja of Konoha yet.

"Hey Sakura, where's the new guy?" came a simple question from Ino as she looked around trying to find the blond that had displayed such an immense talent the previous day.

"Not here," the voice the pinkette made her statement in should've been enough to deter any further questioning, however Ino wasn't the sort of individual to simply shrug and let things be, she needed to know all the details, her nature demanded it.

"Well I can tell that… but do you know why? I mean seriously, he kicked Mizuki-sensei's ass, there is no way they wouldn't make him a ninja right? Unless, (gasp) are they making him an ANBU?" the blond haired gossip queen started to extrapolate until she was silenced by a glare that everyone in the class knew.

"Ino… shut up before I make you wish you didn't have a mouth to begin with," the sheer venom contained within the junior snake summoners tone made the platinum haired girl take a step back out of self preservation, after all, that tone tended to result in very, very bad things happening to whoever it was directed towards.

"C-come one Sakura, I was only wondering why that guy isn't here, I mean seriously, he shows up for one day and," the young blond proceeded to freeze in terror as she felt a feeling she really did not want to feel… a constricted tingling on her leg that was slowly rising.

"Ino, I will warn you one more time… shut up, or else," the almost hiss like quality to the pinkettes speech finally made the biggest gossip in Konoha nod in affirmation in fear of losing her virginity to a snakes head… she knew Sakura would do it too, having been one of the witnesses to the first (and last) time she'd done it.

"O-o-o-okay, j-j-just p-p-p-please," the purple clad genin stuttered out with fear drenching her voice before she felt the weight climbing her leg vanish, causing her to let out a massive sigh of relief before slowly edging away from the pink haired psychopath she normally considered a friend.

The classroom was relatively quiet after that encounter, nobody was prepared to speak in anything more than the barest of whispers after the display put on by Sakura, after all, it was well known that Ino was one of only three people that could approach her when she was in a bad mood. However it was obvious that today the pink haired Konoichi was in a mood where most people that annoyed her would suffer a slow and excruciatingly painful death.

"Alright class, sit down and open your ears," came a calm call from Iruka as he walked into the room, instantly realising what was going on, the simple fact that everything was very quiet and Sakura looked ready to kill something meant no-one was prepared to speak for fear of invoking the girls wrath… and rightly so, he was a Chūnin and would nearly hesitate to speak when she was in that sort of mood.

"Okay… I know this is strange but it would appear that Uzumaki Naruto has dropped out of the academy before completing the exam and is therefore not allowed to be a genin," the collective surprise that spread throughout the room was obvious, just like the scowl on the pinkettes face upon him mentioning that fact, "however, it would also appear that another newcomer is joining the graduating teams without even being tested."

The uproar that occurred upon that piece of information was expected, just like the barely restrained anger in the Chūnin's voice, the mere fact the academy was being treated like a joke by the Kyūbi jinchūriki and the Hokage was something that got on his nerves. This newcomer should've participated in the academy just like every other ninja that was born after the founding of the village, yet here they were, joining the graduating teams without any instruction, it was a poor example that merely made the institution look bad.

Sakura noticed this undertone, causing her mind to wander over why this stranger was being allowed in the class and coming to a single conclusion… her aniki must have had something to do with it. She didn't know why but the way he had been acting since his return gave her the impression that he was much colder and more calculating than when he left. It honestly scared her a little, not a lot since he was her aniki and she knew that whatever he was planning was for a reason, however she just couldn't get the nagging feeling that she was missing something out of her head.

"Alright, quiet down. This 'graduate'," Iruka said with a minor amount of sarcasm lacing his voice, "is apparently already with their teams Jōnin sensei, so I'll just tell you your team placements and let you get on with your day."

The following five minutes held little significance to Sakura as she heard the scarred Chūnin read out a list of names that meant nothing to her before her ears finally caught a name she knew, "team seven will consist of Uchiha Sasuke, Aburame Shino and Inuzuka Kiba," alarm bells immediately rang in the young girls head upon hearing that team make up, all three members of that team were at the top of the class. Normally the rookie of the year, which this year happened to be Sasuke, was always placed with the deadlast… who Sakura couldn't be bothered to remember the name of this year. So this break from tradition combined with the fact that the entire team consisted of boys instead of the usual two boys and one girl, meant that something was seriously wrong with the team assignments.

"Team eight will consist of Haruno Sakura, Hyūga Hinata and Kurama Yakumo," it was obvious from Iruka's tone that he had come to the same conclusion the pinkette had, someone was messing with Konoha's age old traditions and he didn't like it one little bit. However despite his rather clear annoyance at the situation, it didn't stop chatter from spreading around the former students concerning the third name on the list, "everyone shut up!"

The effect was immediate and instantly the class was nearly perfectly silent, with only the chirping of birds outside the window being at an audible level, allowing the Chūnin to continue the list with team nine before reaching the last of the graduates, "and lastly, team ten will consist of Yamanaka Ino, Akimichi Chōji and Nara Shikamaru, now your Jōnin instructors should be here in about an hour so go and have some lunch and make your way back here," the class looked at the man as he turned his back and remembered something he had missed in his annoyance at the situation.

"Before you go, I have something I wish to say to you all, I have had the pleasure, as well as the torture, of teaching you all the basics of being a ninja. From this day onwards I will no longer be your sensei but your senpai and just like me, you will one day be asked to risk your lives for this village. However I believe that when that time comes, you will face whatever danger may come your way with a determination that would make the kami cower before you, that you will show the world the will of fire that burns within each and every one of you, today is your first step towards becoming legends, however it is just the first step, there is still much for each and every one of you to learn and I'm certain, that all of you will grow up to be wonderful ninja's. So do what is right, go forward without hesitation and do Konoha proud," the silence was deafening, allowing the Chūnin to let out a smile that he could instil such a response from the group. Schooling his features he turned, ready to show the entire class just how much he believed in them.

Only to find the classroom was empty.

XXX XXX XXX

Yūhi Kurenai was normally quite a calm and collected individual, however here she was locking eyes with a girl she had once told to give up on the idea of becoming a konoichi. This entire situation had caused her a serious headache, to hear that the Hokage himself had placed the young girl on her genin team had made her question his sanity, even going so far as to charge into his office and demand explanations.

It wasn't that she didn't like Yakumo, the girl had plenty of drive as well as a decent amount of talent, however she was just too weak physically to become a ninja. She respected Maito Gai and his enthusiasm to train Rokku Rī, a boy who couldn't use chakra, however Rī would not slow his teammates down when moving, whereas Yakumo with her frail body and lack of stamina would constantly force any team she was a part of to stop for breaks far more often than necessary, something that could prove fatal if trying to escape enemy territory.

It was for that reason that she had told the girl to give up trying to become a ninja and decided to seal away her ability. That had caused the current problem… Yakumo hated her with a passion, which would in turn make it nearly impossible for her to teach the 'genin' anything. The only reason she had given into the aged leaders orders were simple, because he had told her that Ido was no longer residing within her and that her body should start to improve with time and training.

So here she was, sitting across from the girl with light brown hair who was staring at her with a fiery hate in her eyes that let her know that the girl was thinking over how many different ways she could kill her, probably rather brutal ways given how long she had been isolated and the fact she used to have a demon that would 'assist' her imagination.

She didn't understand why this confrontation was so hard for her, although she had practically betrayed the girl, she had done so for good reasons. So why was it so hard right now? Was it the feeling of guilt over deciding to end the young girls career before it had even started? Or was it the thought that the girl wouldn't accept her reasons?

Yakumo however was having completely different thoughts, which were rather accurately predicted by the Jōnin in front of her but with a little bit extra underneath the murderous rage, mainly about the stranger that had asked to speak with Ido. She still didn't understand it, the purple haired stranger had walked into her room, asked to speak with someone she had never heard of before and then she had blacked out before waking up to a hospital ceiling and being told she was going to be made a genin.

While she would never throw away a chance at becoming a ninja, the fact of the matter was that the woman sitting on the other side of the table from her had literally sealed away her talent and he had assigned this bitch to teach her again. It was obvious in her eyes right now, the Hokage had no interest in her, that he was simply taunting her by placing her under an instructor that wouldn't teach her, that had actively hindered her by sealing her talent… all it did was further ignite the rage she felt towards the red eyed woman.

"_There was a reason she did that."_

The voice appeared out of nowhere and sounded as though it was coming from everywhere and nowhere… something that was obviously a genjutsu. Upon making her realisation, the young girl proceeded to stop the flow of her chakra, preventing any further illusions from effecting her.

"_That won't work Yakumo-chan, I am not a genjutsu but a mind walker… similar to a Yamanaka but far more powerful,"_ the voice said within her head once again, _"I believe I should introduce myself to you, my name is Uzumaki Naruto, the one who made you a genin."_

"Yakumo, are you alright?" Kurenai asked the girl with concern drenching her voice as she noticed the girl starting to look distressed, she had noticed the girl trying to cancel a genjutsu despite there being no sign of there being one on her.

"_Do not lash out at her, doing so would only create unnecessary tension between you… that is rule number one of genjutsu, do not allow your emotions to control you and only create an emotion within the enemy that will play to your advantage," _ immediately the young girls eyes widened as she processed what the strange voice in her head had said, would keeping the woman at a distance be advantageous? _"I will explain the entire situation to you later, however for now, you must accept that Kurenai is once again your sensei and that in order for you to learn anything from her you must allow her to get close to you."_

"_Wait! Should I tell her about you?"_ the girls silence was making the Jōnin worry, it wouldn't have been unexpected if she was still wearing her death glare, however it had changed to one of confusion and almost… acceptance.

"_Foolish little girl, you are the one learning to become a genjutsu mistress, you must make decisions on your own otherwise you will never learn how to proceed when faced with a new obstacle,"_ the voice stated in an almost mocking tone before it vanished from her head completely.

It was strange, up until now she had never been told to decide on her own, her parents had ordered her to become a ninja, her sensei had ordered her to give up trying to become a ninja, her clan had ordered her to stay in her room, there was never any choice in it for her but this strange voice in her head had just said that it was her decision to make, that she had to learn how to make choices in order to proceed.

At least he didn't leave her with nothing, instead he had left her with a few choice words, 'that will play to your advantage'. She would have to decide whether telling the woman she hated more than anything that she was hearing a voice in her head would work to her advantage. If she told the truth the woman might have her locked up as insane, however if she kept the truth from her, she might refuse to teach her anything, either option was a possible loss for her. Unless… the voice had essentially started teaching her already, so if it was already going to teach her then why would she need the red eyed woman in front of her anyway?

But what if it wouldn't teach her anymore? It had already made it sound like the wavy haired Jōnin would be the one teaching her but how could she know what the results of her choice would be?

Suddenly something struck her, the voices introduction had stated its name was Uzumaki Naruto, a pair of words that had felt familiar when she heard them however now that she thought about it everything began to fit together. Kurenai had told her a few times that her talent was almost as great as her previous students, this voice had told her a rule of genjutsu users, it also appeared to trust the woman before her… was it possible that it was the same person?

"Have you ever heard of someone named Uzumaki Naruto?" immediately the older konoichi's eyes widened, letting the young girl know that the woman recognised the name, earning several seconds of silence before the younger of the duo proceeded to continue her questions, "can he enter peoples' minds?"

"I see… so he invaded your mind just now didn't he? What did he tell you?" the red eyed Jōnin asked the girl, causing her to look away as she whispered something the woman never thought she'd say.

"That the first rule of genjutsu is to never let your emotions control you and to only try to create an emotion if it is advantageous to you," the young girl said while attempting to stop herself from thinking about what this person had said before introducing himself.

"I see… so he's already started trying to corrupt you," instantly the young girls eyes narrowed before she started glaring at the visage of beauty before her.

"Shut up, unlike you he actually gave me a choice, unlike you he actually told me something other than 'give up' , what the hell is so wrong with him telling me to turn things to my advantage?!" as soon as she had finished, Naruto's words impacted straight into her head, 'do not let your emotions control you', she had already broken the first of the boys teachings, she had already failed.

"Yakumo, please just listen, Naruto might start teaching you, however his own loyalty is unknown, for all we know he could be trying to turn you into little more than a puppet," the genjutsu user tried to explain to the former demon host who simply shook her head and once again lost herself to her emotions.

"No! You're just scared! You're scared of what I can do! You, the Sandaime, all of you only care that I'm never a threat to you!" the tears streaming from the youngsters eyes told the woman everything, the pain, the loneliness and the anger at being told to be careful of the one that accepted her.

"No! I'm scared that you'll get hurt!" she didn't think about her words, just blurted them out, something she knew Naruto would've scolded her for if he had seen, after all, he always worshiped control, that was one of the reasons he was so good at the art of genjutsu, he knew exactly how he wanted to control his opponents and had no reservations about deceiving them into doing what he wanted. However Yakumo was not Naruto and it was this very lack of control that brought the girl down from her fury.

"W-what did you say?" the young genjutsu prodigy couldn't believe her ears, the woman that had tried to destroy her career had said she was afraid of her getting hurt.

"I'm scared you'll get hurt," the red eyed illusionist said in a much softer tone this time as she looked the younger of the two in the eyes, "being a ninja is a dangerous occupation and requires a strong body to keep running when being chased, or continue on little rest, something your illness prevented you from doing… I'm sorry I didn't properly explain it to you but I hated myself every time I was forced to tell you that."

The entire teahouse they had been meeting in became eerily quiet as the pair proceeded to let the weight of the situation sink in, though both of them were wondering why no one had so much as looked their way throughout the entire ordeal, neither of them noticing the purple haired man in black sipping on some herbal tea, nor the genjutsu placed on every occupant of the stand outside of them.

"Do you still think I'll be a burden?" the lack of volume in the girls voice made it clear that she was starting to have second thoughts about her career choice, however for the first time, Kurenai could say what she really wanted to say, instead of what she had to.

"No, the reason you woke up in the hospital was because they finally managed to find a cure for you," she knew that the girl would be overjoyed by this news, without her 'illness' as she believed it was, she would have no problems becoming a ninja, "you're now an official genin and just need time and training to get your body into shape… and with your enthusiasm and determination, I have no doubt you'll become a powerful konoichi soon."

"R-really?" Yakumo didn't know why but for the first time ever, she was crying for a reason that wasn't sadness or anger but happiness, the woman she had hated for so long for discarding her had just told her why she had been discarded and that the reason was no longer an issue, that she could finally become a true konoichi and make her family proud.

Naruto certainly had to admit that the meeting between the pair was working out exactly the way he was hoping it would, of course anyway it could turn out would be fine and would require nearly no adjustments to his plans, however he was happy to see the pair having a heart to heart, it was something he had been looking forward to when he had arranged for the Hokage to place them on the same team. It was a simple piece of planning really, there were only two people the Hokage could trust to supervise him training Yakumo, her and Kakashi and given Yakumo's skill set, the most obvious choice was Kurenai, despite the woman's previous involvement in the Kurama heir.

So this situation was one of his preferred outcomes, he might have been rather cold and calculating, never letting his personal feelings or morals interfere with his actions towards achieving his goal, however when there were several possible outcomes which made no real difference to his overall plan, he would often choose the least difficult method, unless there was someone or something involved that he had a personal attachment to, something that was the case here.

And he had to admit he really did feel an attachment to the woman that taught him the basics that allowed him to master his art. It was something that he had never told anyone but he thought of the beautiful genjutsu mistress on the same level of affection he did for Sakura and Isako, probably because she shared his passion and never once mocked him if he was unable to do something, instead just encouraging him to keep trying… the exact opposite of what Hyūga Hiashi had done with his daughter.

That would be one thing he would be certain to correct in time, mocking someone that possessed a fighting spirit and a desire to prove people wrong was perfectly fine, it tended to just give them more reason to try harder in an attempt to prove their tormentors wrong, however he had long ago learned of the young girls confidence issues and the Hyūga heads training methods had been the worst possible for her, just as the academies training regime had been wrong for the current graduates deadlast.

Yes, it truly did annoy him that Konoha never made adjustments in its training methods to deal with different personality types or learning styles, the deadlast had been a prime example of a kinaesthetic learner, someone who learned best through practice, while the academy spent most of its time in lectures, preventing him from truly learning what he could if applied properly.

Of course he would make sure that that would change, he just had to finalize his plans for Konoha and things would change significantly. He knew the results would make the village undoubtedly the strongest of the five great hidden villages, of course there would be people that would protest but that was the same with any great movement and if they refused to back down… hell has plenty of vacancies.

With that in mind, he stood from his seat, effortlessly keeping the genjutsu in place as he walked past the now bonding teacher and student and out of the teahouse, ready to make the next move in his plan for the village.

XXX XXX XXX

Sarutobi Hiruzen couldn't help but let out a small smile as he watched Kurenai and Yakumo get over their differences and start bonding. It was almost disturbing now that he knew he had once again be played by the blond illusionist, the small smirk he had sent when the crystal ball had picked up his image was enough proof to let the man know that he had been expecting this outcome to happen, that he knew the aged leader would place the two together.

However despite this obvious mockery of his intellect, the Sandaime Hokage couldn't bring himself to be mad at the boy, because if it wasn't for him, he was certain Kurenai and Yakumo would've never been capable of talking to each other the way they currently were and that alone was worth something.

"So Kurenai is one of the people that hold a special place in your heart… I guess I was right to put Yakumo under her after all," the aged leader muttered to himself as he took a puff of his pipe, happily savouring the flavour of the smoke before releasing it with a content sigh.

Yes, today was proving to be a good day, he no longer had to worry about his old students spies, with every name on the list proving to be a genuine spy, with not a single member of the group knowing anything about anymore spies in the village, indicating that the blonds list was indeed comprehensive. There was also the matter with Yakumo and Ido, the fact that the girl could now be allowed a life without them having to worry about the demon coming out and causing carnage, then on top of all this relief, one of his newest Jōnin had finally been capable of making up to the student she had been forced to betray because of the demon... all in all, the village looked like it would be in good hands for a little while at least.

XXX XXX XXX

Shimura Danzō was normally a very patient man, however there was one small problem that he was not prepared to wait upon discovering. The seal he had placed within the Hokages office had failed him just after he heard of a man named Rokudo Mukuro enter the aged leaders office. This of course meant that he had no information concerning this stranger other than his name and combined with what he had heard of the man toying with three Jōnin made him extremely nervous.

It didn't help that he couldn't discover anything concerning this strangers motives or residence within Konoha, for all intensive purposes he was as good as a ghost by the sheer lack of evidence he left for him to follow. It was for this reason that the old man with bandages covering his right eye and his arm in a sling was returning to his base of operations after a short discussion with the Konoha council who surprisingly had no knowledge of this man even existing, let alone where he stayed or who he was.

"Greetings Danzō-dono," came a calm call as soon as the old man opened the door to his office, causing the aged ninja to tense momentarily before hearing the honorific the stranger called him by.

"Who are you and how did you enter my office?" the man that was once a candidate for the position of Sandaime Hokage asked the purple haired intruder with a trace amount of curiosity in his voice, despite this strangers presence being unexpected, the fact he seemed as civil as he did made the older man slightly calmer.

"I'm certain you already have a good idea as to who I am Danzō-dono, as for how I'm here, well we all have our secrets now don't we?" 'Mukuro' said with a small smirk as he calmly sat in the older man's chair with his feet on the man's desk.

"Then would you please explain why you are here Rokudo-san?" the one eyed old man asked in a tone that would've sounded completely neutral to most individuals… however 'Rokudo Mukuro' was not a normal person and could easily identify the underlying curiosity in the older man's voice.

"Certainly Danzō-dono, I am here to offer you a proposition," the heterochromatic illusionist said completely calmly, earning a blank stare off the experienced ninja that failed to hide his intrigue at the statement.

"And what is this proposition?" the man known by many as a warhawk asked, his curiosity unnoticeable to any ordinary ninja.

"Putting you in your rightful place… as Hokage."


	12. Chapter 12

Sakura was surprised. Scratch that she was pissed. To think that the Hokage had placed her under Kurenai of all people. Sure she had nothing against the woman, quite the opposite in fact, she respected the woman a great deal however the Jōnin was a genjutsu specialist and that was one thing the pink haired girl didn't have the patience for. She was much happier actually blowing stuff up as opposed to making people think she was blowing stuff up.

Hinata on the other hand was overjoyed, Kurenai had always been kind to her and taught her everything she wanted to know, something her actual family refused to do, with them it was always 'our style of taijutsu is the ultimate technique' and wanting to learn something else was practically sacrilege as far as the clan was concerned.

Yakumo was trying her hardest to hold back a smile upon seeing her two teammates, it was proof that the red eyed Jōnin wasn't just saying things and she was really going to be a genin.

Kurenai however had quickly figured out her three students, having had dealings with all three previously and as such already had a decent idea of how the trio thought while also already knowing just how the group could gel practically. Sakura was a very direct young girl, lots of brute force for a konoichi and a surprisingly large chakra pool to help back it up, Hinata on the other hand was a very gentle young ninja that preferred to heal others instead of harm them and lastly, Yakumo had some real talent in the art of genjutsu, sure she was nowhere near Naruto in terms of raw skill but that boy was terrifyingly adept with the art of illusions.

Their conflicting skill sets actually made their purpose within the team perfectly clear, Sakura was the combat specialist, Hinata would stay back and heal the others should they ever require it while Yakumo would support Sakura by rendering the enemies senses useless.

However the real problem with the team would definitely be Sakura. Despite her skill and intellect she was quite hard headed and would probably have a problem being taught by a genjutsu specialist, completely unaware of the simple fact that her new sensei actually had more skill in ninjutsu than Anko, hell the only thing Anko beat her in was physical strength and stamina.

The problem though would be convincing the short fused pinkette that that was actually the case and accept her training as that of a fully fledged Jōnin… the only person she could see the girl listen to was Naruto and he wasn't exactly the easiest person to track down anymore, especially given his ability to overcome both the Sharingan and even Ido.

They young Jōnin immediately had to suppress a shudder at that thought, she had witnessed the power Ido possessed first hand and knew just how frightening the creature was, the simple fact that Naruto could defeat such a being, completely removing it from Yakumo did nothing more than prove to the village that he was not the sort of person they wanted betraying them. Such a simple action had shown them all why all of Orochimaru's spies that knew of 'Rokudo Mukuro' believed that Akatsuki feared him… because against a person with such an immense grasp of the art of genjutsu, no defence was sufficient.

Indeed, Naruto was easily the most dangerous shinobi since the times of Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama, though she doubted even they could contend with someone that could toy with all their senses with apparent ease.

She quickly brought her thoughts back to the children that sat before her, Sakura's glare practically melting through the window and towards the Hokage's residence, obviously she blamed the Hokage for putting her under Kurenai, probably annoyed that the aged leader hadn't placed her under Kakashi like she had hoped would happen.

"Alright then, Sakura, Hinata, allow me to introduce you to your new teammate, Kurama Yakumo," the red eyed woman said with a warm smile spread across her lips.

"Yo, I'm Sakura, this is Hinata, don't worry about her, she's just shyer than a tortoise… and acts like one too," the pinkette told the light haired brunette with a small smirk as she watched the lavender eyed girl retreat even further into her coat than normal, "see."

Yakumo couldn't help but let out a chuckle at the display as she tried to understand why Sakura looked so annoyed but sounded so cheerful, the combination seemed very off to her.

"Sakura, stop making fun of your teammate," the red eyed beauty scolded lightly and with little in the way of force, knowing full well that going any further would just result in the girl fighting back and she really didn't want the team to get off to such a violent start.

"I'm not," the green eyed konoichi said with a pout before puffing up a little and placing her arm around the Hyūga heir, "I'm making fun of my friend."

Upon hearing that Yakumo couldn't stop herself from blinking at the situation, she had be raised to believe that friends were nice to each other but this pink haired girl seemed to think that making fun of someone was a perfectly acceptable thing to do even to a friend.

Kurenai on the other hand simply let out a sigh, she should've known that training with Anko for several years would wear off on the girl but how was she supposed to know that the girl would stick with the deranged snake mistress all that time? Everyone else that the purple haired tokubetsu Jōnin had gotten her hands on had run away within the day and never come back.

"Well I'll leave you three to get better acquainted, tomorrow I'll be testing your growth since I last met you, be ready for anything tomorrow at training ground twenty one," the genjutsu mistress told the group before she proceeded to leave them to their own devices in the hope that they would spend the day wisely.

"So… wanna spar?" Sakura asked chirpily, something that Yakumo noticed made the pale eyed girl turn deathly white, "come on! Let's do this!"

Neither Yakumo nor Hinata were given a chance to say no.

XXX XXX XXX

Naruto found the current situation rather amusing. To think that everyone in Konoha thought that Maito Gai and Rokku Rī hugging was a horrific sight, sure he would admit it wasn't a pleasant one but he had seen far more horrific sights during his time in the six hells. The human realm in particular still haunted him whenever he thought of it and was something he considered so horrific that he would never use an illusion based around what he experienced there… no one, no matter how evil deserved that punishment in his eyes.

However he would never let anyone know of the psychological scar that hell left on him, it was a sign of weakness and he refused to let anyone see his weakness, such was the nature of the mist.

Despite those thoughts the young boy currently in the guise of Rokudo Mukuro never lost his focus as he silently wished that Danzō was the Hokage right now. It was something he wouldn't allow Hiruzen to know until it was too late, that he and Danzō possessed similar agenda's as far as Konoha was concerned and that he had been planning the Sandaime's fall for well over a year already.

Once Danzō took the reins of the village he would not only be given the position he wanted above all others but would also be allowed to start a special unit, one he had already decided on the name for a long time ago.

But first he needed to wait for his plans to come to fruition, since Hebi-chan's spies reported in once a week on the same day meant he had to wait before he could discover if the snake user would continue with the planned invasion. He may not have been certain of the snake's plans at the moment due to his own intervention but he suspected that the traitor would continue with his attack, though he would probably decide to rely on Edo Tensei more than he originally would.

It was fortunate that Edo Tensei was such a simple jutsu to counter as far as he was concerned, regardless of a shinobi's strength, durability or immortality, they were powerless against his illusions, especially if he used his Kiri Genjutsu.

However none of that was important right now, what was important was what he saw of Rokku Rī. He was well aware of Maito Gai's resolve from everything he had heard and read about him however Rī was truly terrifying, his inability to form chakra merely increased his resolve, if he was right then the boy was practically always in the legendary dying will mode he had heard of the Vongola line possessing. He knew that when he finally founded his unit, Rokku Rī would be one of the people he would try his hardest to gain for it, his potential would be wasted anywhere else.

Of course the problem would be persuading the boy to join his cause, which he was certain would be one of the hardest negotiations he would ever undergo courtesy of the boys loyalty to his sensei's teachings.

Deciding to make himself known and spare the duo's other teammates, the area suddenly turned pitch black, completely neutralising the sunset that had been occupying the background while the two taijutsu enthusiasts were hugging. Immediately all the members of the team were on alert, ready for an attack from any direction. Their eyes widened as countless eyes, each possessing a red iris with a number from Ichi to Roku instead of a pupil.

Seeing such a display made the three genin shiver at the sight of countless eyes watching them while Gai simply relaxed, knowing that only one person in Konoha possessed eyes like that.

"Greetings, Maito Gai, Rokku Rī, Hyūga Neji, Tenten, I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Naruto called out as he walked out of one of the eyes in the guise of Rokudo Mukuro before the area of effect illusion vanished, though the Jōnin frowned slightly at the fact the boy was hiding behind a henge of someone much older.

"No, however I would like to ask what I should refer to you as," the Taijutsu master stated, he knew that this man standing before him was Naruto, the eye alone gave it away, however the fact the boy was hiding behind such a disguise made it obvious to him that he didn't want his identity known.

"You may call me Rokudo Mukuro as I am right now Gai-san," Naruto responded calmly as he noticed the Hyūga activating his Byakugan, though the act was worthless against his mist enhanced henge.

"I see, now may I ask why you have decided to talk with us," the spandex wearing shinobi informed the currently purple haired illusionist.

"I heard many tales about your student, Rokku Rī," immediately the genin noticed their sensei stiffen at the statement, what did Naruto want with Rī? "is it true that he was the deadlast of his graduating year?"

"Indeed, however he's improved a lot since then," the Jōnin told the genjutsu master with a hint of nervousness as he tried to process why the heterochromatic boy was asking such a question.

"And why do you think that is?" Naruto's question made the bowl cut Jōnin freeze slightly before answering.

"Because he is a hard worker, he puts his heart and soul into his training! His flames of youth burn brightly!" despite wanting to keep a calm demeanour, the oldest in the clearing couldn't stop his pride in his student from slipping through.

"I have no doubt about that, however what I meant is why was he the deadlast when he has proven he could improve so much in just a year?" 'Mukuro' asked the Jōnin who immediately narrowed his eyes at the mist user before him.

"Because the academy didn't suit him," Gai immediately knew that he had fallen into the blonds trap when he saw the smirk that graced his lips.

"Exactly, now here is another question, how many children fall under Rī-kun's circumstances? And I don't mean his inability to form chakra but being unsuited to the academy?" all four ninja in the clearing found themselves wondering exactly what this stranger meant, "after all, just look at Jiraiya of the sannin, he was a deadlast but now he is considered one of the greatest shinobi of all time."

"What are you trying to suggest Rokudo-san," the green clad Jōnin asked seriously as he tried to read anything he could in the illusionists eyes.

"The academy is a disgrace," the shock that spread throughout the group was obvious to all, "it is rigged against certain kinds of people and towards others, it is not a fair education, it does not allow for specialisation or the further development of skills because of that… Konoha is being weakened."

"That is a lie, Konoha is the strongest of the five great villages," Neji stated calmly before a hint of confusion appeared on his face at the quiet chuckle he received in exchange.

"That is what they tell you, however I will tell you right here and now, that that reputation was earned a long time ago, right now, Kumo is the strongest of the five great villages," he knew he was making the ninja before him angry, the thought that he was claiming Kumo was stronger than Konoha was not something they would take lightly, especially Neji who lost his father because of the other village, "and it is all because of Sarutobi Hiruzen."

The looks of shock that plastered their faces was satisfying in Naruto's eyes, the mere thought of someone accusing the Sandaime of making Konoha weaker than Kumo was not something anyone would expect anyone to say. However Naruto had seen it with his own eyes, he could see where Hiruzen was going wrong from an outside perspective and he refused to let his love for the man tint his vision.

This was his first point of call, to overthrow the Sandaime he first had to turn the shinobi against him and in order to do that he had to not only make the ninja realise that the man wasn't what was best for Konoha but also aim personal points in order to push them just that little bit further from supporting the man.

He knew that Danzō wasn't perfect for the position but there was something immensely different between the two, Danzō could be reasoned with. Sarutobi was too far set in his moral code that he would not be persuaded from his current way of running the village, however Danzō would be prepared to listen and implement certain schemes in order to maintain loyalty while not being held back from doing what was necessary by petty morals.

Yes, Sarutobi's single greatest weakness, his reliance on morals. The shinobi world was a no holds barred warzone where every advantage could mean the difference between life and death and Sarutobi had refused to take several advantages because of his damn morals.

That was a weakness Danzō did not have and he already knew how he would repossess certain advantages that Hiruzen had let go.

"What are you saying Rokudo-san?" Gai asked with a dangerous edge in his voice, obviously his loyalty to the Hokage was unquestionable however the real question was if his loyalty to the Hokage outweighed his loyalty to Konoha.

"Sarutobi may be powerful, he may be smart but he is rarely prepared to do what is truly necessary to keep Konoha powerful, that inability to set aside his personal opinion and do what is best for the village," the icy glare he received from the bushy browed Jōnin did nothing more than make him smirk, "he is too soft to keep Konoha on top."

"I hope you realise that what you're saying is tantamount to treason," the taijutsu specialist stated colder than any of his genin had ever heard.

"Is it? I thought treason was to betray Konoha, not the Hokage? My loyalty lies with the village, do you really want to put your comrades at risk by supporting Hiruzen?" 'Mukuro' asked with a grin as he began to wonder exactly when Gai's self control would fail and he would strike at him.

"That is Hokage-sama to you Rokudo-san," seeing their sensei like this resulted in the three genin backing away, hoping that nothing would come of this encounter, though they suspected fists would fly sooner or later.

"I do not consider him worthy of being referred to as sama," and with that statement Gai's foot flew straight through the illusionists face, instantly shocking Neji as his eyes were proven to have failed him for the first time in his life, "now, now Gai-kun… how many shinobi have died because of Sarutobi refusing to use every advantage at his disposal?" Naruto said in the Jōnin's ear only for the man's fist to once again pass harmlessly through the illusions head, "how many genin have lost their lives because he didn't ensure the academy was working?" another failed attempt at hitting the blond was made by the taijutsu master, "what would have happened to Rī if he didn't have the luck of being placed under you?"

The genin couldn't stop their eyes from widening as they watched their sensei getting toyed with by this stranger, the sight was truly frightening, the mere thought that there was someone capable of dealing with their sensei like this was unreal in their eyes. However it was their sensei's slowly building hesitation that truly shocked them, the fact that they could actually see their teacher growing more and more uncertain was terrifying.

"You know don't you, Rī would've been thrown to the side as a failure before dying on his first mission with any danger… and it would've all been Sarutobi Hiruzen's fault," the purple haired genjutsu master said quietly before the taijutsu master slowed to a stop, "you are loyal to the Hokage, but you are smart enough to know that what I say is the truth."

"Help me Maito Gai, help me save Konoha by putting someone that won't make these mistakes in charge," the heterochromatic blond said as he watched the spandex clad shinobi slump in defeat.

"What do you plan on doing to Hokage-sama?" the green beast of Konoha asked quietly, hoping against all hope that the boy that was playing with his emotions and loyalties did not intend on harming the man that had led them since before he was born.

"I intend on forcing him to step down, despite my words, I do love him like a grandfather… I am just prepared to see the truth of his suitability as a leader," the honesty in the genjutsu covered boy's voice was there but the Jōnin couldn't stop himself from questioning it, this boy was far more dangerous than he gave him credit for.

"Fine… I will help you take the Hokage's seat as long as you promise to not harm him," Gai said, earning a sad sigh off the younger boy.

"I don't want the Hokage's seat… I just want a leader that is prepared to do what is necessary for the village, so will you help me push Shimura Danzō into the Hokage's position?" instantly Gai's eyes widened as he heard the name of the man Naruto intended on making the Godaime Hokage.

XXX XXX XXX

Yakumo and Hinata couldn't stop themselves from breathing heavily and sweating like fountains as they tried to recover from Sakura's 'sparring' session. The fact that neither girl could tell if their psychotic teammate was trying to kill them or not didn't help matters either.

Looking towards the pink haired nutjob both girls could only curse the ninjutsu specialists stamina as she calmly ran laps around the training ground with just a minor sheen from her sweat glistening in the light of the sun.

"D… Damn… how… much… stamina…. Does… that… girl… have…?" Yakumo asked while panting heavily and watching the youngest of Konoha's snake mistresses. Sure she knew she didn't have much stamina at all but Sakura was a freak, not only running like she was possessed but also throwing several rather… explosive Katon jutsu at the duo who ended up using all their strength just to evade the psychopathic pinkette's flames.

Of course what they weren't aware of was the fact that Sakura had literally held back just enough to keep her slightly beyond their combined level, though it did annoy her that neither of her sparring partners had used any techniques to try and turn the tide of the fight, which pissed her off for obvious reasons.

"Too much," Hinata replied in her honest opinion, Sakura had been the top girl in the academy for a reason after all, as many newly graduated Konoichi would attest to, "so what do you know? I didn't really get to see much of what you could do while running from Sakura-chan."

Instantly the young genjutsu enthusiast noted something unusual in her opinion, the fact that Hinata wasn't stuttering like she did before, however seeing her look of confusion Sakura piped in while on her 'cool down' jog.

"Don't worry, Hinata just talks smoother when she's too tired to overthink things," upon hearing the strongest of the group make that statement the shy girl realised what had happened and quickly retreated into her coat once again, making Yakumo giggle at the scene before she immediately admonished herself for letting her amusement slip, "seriously though, what can you do cause you looked fuckin weak back there?"

The green eyed monsters words cut into the young illusionists soul as her hatred began to stir once again.

"I'm learning genjutsu... just because I can't fight like you doesn't mean I'm weak!" the youngest of the group snapped angrily making Hinata shirk away from her, though Sakura didn't seem to notice (or care).

"So why didn't you try to trap me in a genjutsu? I know how annoying those things can be since my aniki specialises in them," the snake summoner asked the younger girl without missing a beat, making the brown haired girl turn her face away.

"You didn't give me a chance to…" she quickly noticed the pinkette rolling her eyes at her statement before deciding to let the girl know something her sensei had once told her.

"You know Anko-sensei always told me 'if you can't use a jutsu under combat conditions then you're better off not knowing it!' in other words, keep practicing until you can use it without thinking, then it'll be worth something on the battlefield," Sakura stated as sagely as she could manage, failing spectacularly courtesy of Anko's influence on her, "and then of course aniki always said that the best genjutsu were the ones the victim didn't know were effecting them."

"Huh? What do you mean?" the newest of the group asked in confusion as her pyromaniac of a teammate mentioned something that could possibly benefit her.

"(sigh) aniki always said that the closer to reality an illusion was the harder it was to tell that it was an illusion which meant it was easier to trick the enemy into not trying to dispel the jutsu," the pink haired genin explained, making Yakumo's eyes widen at the advice… it definitely sounded well grounded and worth experimenting with.

"Your aniki sounds like he knows quite a bit about genjutsu," the beginner in the art of genjutsu admitted to her other teammates.

"Yeah, Naruto-nii does," that was the moment when Sakura realised that this team all had one thing in common, everyone had some form of link, direct or indirect to Naruto. The part that gave it away was simply Yakumo's reaction to his name, the surprise clear on her face could only mean one thing after all, that she at the very least knew of the blond and given that he wasn't famous, that meant she had some form of interaction that allowed her to find out about the boy, "I see…"

"W-what's w-wrong Sakura-chan?" Hinata proceeded to ask as she saw her friends face darken slightly after her statement.

"This team was definitely rigged," the confusion that played on the lavender eyed girl's face was obvious to her teammates, "everyone here has some form of connection to Naruto, I'm like his little sister, Kurenai-san was his sensei, you were the person Kurenai stopped training him to look after and it's obvious that Yakumo-san here knows about him somehow."

"W-what are you t-trying to say?" the young Hyūga heir asked nervously, hoping that the pink haired genin wasn't saying anything that could harm their teamwork.

"What I'm saying is that there is no way Naruto-nii will leave this team alone," the green eyed snake mistress said seriously, "we're already in too deep simply being together and if there is one thing I know about my aniki… he loves being in control of everything."

"A-are you saying we should try to m-make things hard for him?" Hinata asked with slightly wide eyes.

"No… I have no doubt we'd still wind up wherever he wanted us no matter how hard we try to resist, it'll be easier just to let him guide us," upon hearing the ninjutsu specialists words, Yakumo began to question what she knew of Uzumaki Naruto, from what she was hearing right now, his own little sister didn't trust him, that immediately told her that Kurenai's distrust of him was not unfounded, though it did raise the question of what his motives really were.

She only knew one thing, she wanted to understand the man that might be training her.


	13. Chapter 13

Maito Gai felt strange standing before the Hokage as he awaited a mission for his genin team. Ever since Uzumaki Naruto had confronted him about Sarutobi Hiruzen he had been thinking more and more about what the boy had said. Morals were something he had always acted with but just how much stronger could Konoha be if the leader lacked them?

He knew for one that the chances were that Orochimaru would still be within the village, quite possibly giving shinobi performance enhancers that would decrease casualties. It was definitely something worth thinking about and despite his love of the aged leader, he couldn't deny the genjutsu masters words.

Sarutobi was a loved leader but not a very good one. He would do better in a figurehead position that didn't require tough decision making while his old rival was practically the opposite, someone that would fail to garner the support of the public but would be more than capable of making the necessary decisions.

And that was the crux of the problem. The taijutsu master was anything but a fool and he knew that while Naruto was playing him, the boy didn't say anything that wasn't true, meaning he was incapable of denying the boys plan... even if he had been required to convince his genin to keep quiet about the meeting.

Of course the simple fact that he had decided to listen to the genjutsu master was shocking enough for his team, they had never expected their unwavering sensei to give in to a strangers words… not that they could really blame the man for giving up trying to attack the heterochromatic man when it was obvious that he was never going to hit the man that seemed to personify deception.

And so here they stood in the mission office with looks of distraction gracing their features before accepting a simple C-rank protection detail for a merchant caravan travelling to a small gambling town within Hi No Kuni's borders.

Upon seeing the team leave the room, the Sandaime let out a sigh as he thought about the strange tension that existed between the team that was normally far more excitable, the mere fact that Rokku Rī was being uncharacteristically quiet didn't help his headache.

Of course he had a suspicion concerning what happened to make them behave that way, however despite the fact that he was certain they had had a run in with Uzumaki Naruto, he didn't know what the boy did to make them behave in such an uncharacteristic manner… he simply hoped that it was nothing he couldn't deal with because even now, he understood that against a genjutsu master of Naruto's calibre, there was no guarantee he would win.

At least when he had encountered the Nidaime Mizukage the man relied on his summoned clam to cast his most powerful genjutsu, however Naruto had shown such a mastery of the art that he wasn't certain even Uchiha Shisui could match him, after all, even Shisui had trouble dealing with Kakashi and his sharingan the odd time they had sparred, yet Naruto found deceiving the man a simple task.

And that was just his genjutsu, the aged Hokage didn't even know if Naruto possessed anymore abilities or skills, something that the spiky haired blond could easily take advantage of if they ever came to blows and Sarutobi knew that mystery was the greatest enemy a shinobi could ever face.

And boy was the child a mystery.

"Tori," the aged leader called out to the shadows and almost instantly a dark haired ninja wearing a bird mask appeared before him wearing ANBU standard issue armour, "inform Tora that I want her to observe Maito Gai for the foreseeable future."

"Hai Hokage-sama," the elite ninja responded seriously before vanishing in a swirl of leaves.

_"I just hope I'm worrying over nothing,"_ the aged leader thought to himself as he returned to the paperwork that was sitting on his desk.

XXX XXX XXX

Kurenai had to admit, her team certainly weren't pushovers… then again she had already trained two of them so she already knew that they wouldn't be the same as a normal team… it didn't help that Sakura had trained with Anko either.

She also had to admit that Sakura had a rather… novel, way of dealing with genjutsu which revolved around having a pair of snakes wrapped around her arms to act as heat seekers and direct hers arms towards both her target and her allies, which in turn allowed her to do what is best described as spamming sharp objects and Katon jutsu in her general direction.

It certainly didn't help that Hinata's Byakugan was capable of seeing through the illusions and Yakumo… well, she was doing her best despite her lack of training. That thought made the dark haired woman frown, the sheer fact that the young Kurama heir was so far behind because of the decision to seal her power and essentially treat her like a prisoner instead of a ninja, was rather disconcerting.

Still, she was going to get the young girl up to speed, she was determined to do at least that much, honestly the young girl definitely had the skill to pass as a genin, she simply didn't have the raw strength to do so, meaning she would probably be better off giving the girl a training regime that was mostly physical exercises with the odd bit of chakra control and genjutsu theory.

Letting out a sigh, she proceeded to avoid another fireball sent her way by the pink haired genin that appeared to have taken her instructions of 'come at me with the intent to kill' a little too literally. Upon landing from her short jump she immediately used a quick Kawarimi to avoid a follow up attack from the pale eyed Hyūga heir and cause the group to pause in an attempt to find her again.

"Well, this certainly is quite entertaining to watch," came a familiar voice from next to her, making her eyes widen as she looked to see a familiar mop of blond hair sitting on the branch she had just landed on with his back resting against the trunk, "to think a pair of genin are pushing a Jōnin this far."

"Well, technically there are three of them," Kurenai corrected him as she proceeded to keep her students within her peripheral vision.

"Technically, yes, practically, Yakumo is basically a non participant," the whiskered genjutsu master admitted with a smirk, earning a small glare off the woman that had trained him, "however that will soon change once she receives proper training."

"And you plan on doing that yourself correct?" the red eyed beauty asked seriously before noting that the two girls still hadn't found her despite the fact that they should've after a couple of seconds.

"Of course, I also plan on correcting your deficiency in our art as well," now that statement made her eyebrow twitch, to think that he was mocking her talent in genjutsu without a care in the world, "after all, someone with your talent should have no trouble deceiving mere snakes and the Byakugan."

Upon hearing that claim the raven haired Jōnin suddenly realised why her students had lost her, what he was saying was that he knew how to deceive abilities like that. If he had simply claimed to know how to overcome them she would've called him a liar, however she had proof right here that he was being honest, that he really was so good at the art he could overcome even the most dangerous anti genjutsu abilities.

"How? How is such a thing possible?" she asked him in disbelief as she continued to stare at the scene of her students growing increasingly nervous at her absence.

"Two very simple tricks, the first is to use chakra to make their brain itself ignore your presence, doing that allows the user to bypass the enemies usual senses and make them invisible to them," Naruto informed her calmly as he also looked at the genin looking nervous, "and the second and most useful trick... is to alter their perception of their chakra so they don't even realise they're under a genjutsu."

"Y-you mean you actually did it?" the red and white clad ninja asked with wide eyes as she remembered the promise they had made back before he ran away from the village… even if she had always hoped they would create the method together.

"Yes I did Nai-sensei and now that I've returned I can pass on that knowledge to you," the heterochromatic child stated with a soft smile, "and I also intend on teaching the method to Yakumo when she's grown enough but that can wait after all, your students look like they're about to have a nervous breakdown right now."

"You're the one that's put them this on edge you know," she claimed, earning a small smirk as he proceeded to rise from his position and stand next to his old teacher.

"True, however they don't know that yet, Nai-sensei," he admitted with a smirk before dispersing in his usual mist like manner, honestly it made the Jōnin wonder exactly why he seemed to have an obsession with mist, even back before he left the village he had always incorporated it into his genjutsu so it was unlikely that it had anything to do with Kirigakure.

Shaking her head she decided that it was simply another mystery about the spiky haired youth that she couldn't answer and instead of continuing to dwell on it, she simply decided it was probably better to go back to her students and hopefully reveal herself to them.

"Well I think that's enough for today," she immediately heard a very familiar, feminine voice call out, upon which she immediately looked towards the source of the voice only to see herself standing there with a soft smile on her face.

"Naruto!" she shouted at the top of her voice only to find that he was completely ignoring her.

"So how did we do Kurenai-sensei?" Sakura asked with a carefree expression on her face while Hinata nodded in agreement with her friends question. That was when the newly promoted Jōnin noticed an important fact… Hinata's Byakugan was still active.

She could understand what he said about being capable of making the brain ignore a person's presence, however that should have no effect when utilizing a henge, so how was he pretending to be her without Hinata noticing? The only thought that could come to her mind was that he was tricking everyones brains to replace him with their image of herself, which would of course work since it would both be ignoring Hinata's eyes and using her own perception of what she looked like in order to trick the girl into believing he really was their sensei.

"You did better than I expected, however I would like to point out a few problems, in your abilities," the copy of her stated seriously, earning their undivided attention, "Sakura, while your use of summons to counter genjutsu is certainly an interesting technique, the fact remains that they hindered your movement and reduced your accuracy. Another point you must never forget is that all summons have chakra coils and are therefore capable of assisting you in breaking free of genjutsu."

And with that the pinkette's face fell with the knowledge that her trick for defeating genjutsu was practically pointless given the nature of her summons.

"Hinata, while you certainly are capable of holding your own in a taijutsu fight, you need to work on your speed in order to allow yourself to get close to your opponent, beyond that you are still hesitating too much, remember, if you hesitate at the wrong moment, it could cost your comrades lives," Naruto informed her while remaining in the henge, making Kurenai narrow her eyes at the way he was pointing out problems she had intended on doing herself.

"And Yakumo, it is obvious that unlike the other members of the team, you lack training, however there is something you must not forget," the disguised genjutsu master started with a serious expression adorning 'her' face, "you are a member of team eight, you were placed here because Hokage-sama believed it is where you belong, it is where your talent can be cultivated and your true strength can be realised."

Kurenai had to admit she didn't know what to feel upon seeing the brown haired girl relax upon hearing Naruto's words coming from her lips, if she had to make a guess however, it would be jealousy. Yes, that sounded about right, she was jealous that he was capable of imitating her and get close to her genin without any visible effort.

"Um… Kurenai-sensei?" Hinata suddenly started to question nervously, earning a soft smile and nod from the disguised blond, "how did you hide from my Byakugan?"

"Yeah, that's a damn good question," Sakura agreed whole heartedly with her darker haired comrade, earning a small smirk off the 'ruby eyed beauty' they were looking at.

"Do you really think someone can call themselves a genjutsu master if they can't do something so simple?" the copy of her asked rhetorically, earning a pair of kunai getting thrown at 'her' face.

"Sakura-san! Hinata-san! What are you doing attacking sensei?!" Yakumo asked in horror at the sight before her as Kurenai let out a grin at the fact the two properly trained genin could see through Naruto's illusion after he made such a statement.

"Because that isn't Kurenai-sensei!" Hinata stated seriously as her Byakugan glared at the blond haired illusionist, "she would never refer to herself as a genjutsu master like that."

"Yeah, she always calls herself a genjutsu mistress," Sakura agreed with a serious look in her eyes as she too glared at the disguised individual, "now tell us what you did with Kurenai-sensei!"

"I didn't do anything to her, she's right there," the young boy admitted while still in disguise, pointing a finger towards the dark haired woman and allowing the illusion to drop and render her visible once again.

"So you finally decided to let them see me," the red eyed Jōnin stated with a cold tone, obviously still annoyed at his actions towards her students.

"Of course Nai-sensei," and with that the blond finally allowed his disguise to disperse like mist, revealing his true appearance to the team.

"I told ya so," Sakura stated, earning raised eyebrows from Yakumo, Kurenai and even Naruto himself, though unlike Yakumo and Kurenai who looked confused, Naruto simply looked amused.

"So you already came to the conclusion that I wouldn't leave this team alone didn't you," the heterochromatic boy concluded with a smirk, earning a nod off the pink haired girl in the process.

"Wait! Does that mean you're Naruto-sensei?" the brown haired girl asked with shock clear in her eyes, making both Sakura and Hinata look at her in surprise, neither of them understood how someone couldn't know what their own sensei looked like.

"That is correct Yakumo-san, I believe introductions are in order now that we've finally met face to face," and with that the spiky haired youth gave a small flourish before continuing, "I am Uzumaki Naruto, genjutsu master extraordinaire and former member of the mercenary group Akatsuki."

And with that statement, Kurenai's blood ran cold. She had heard of Akatsuki, of how the group consisted entirely of S-ranked nuke-nin and took on any job that paid well… she had also heard of the fact that Uchiha Itachi was a member of the group. The mere thought of Naruto being surrounded by those sorts of people was disturbing, what was even more disturbing was the fact that he wasn't with them right now, did that mean he was a traitor and if so, how badly did they want to kill him? Or was he in Konoha to act as a spy for them? She didn't know the answer and in the end, she almost wished she never did.

"Ah… nice to meet you?" the hesitation in Yakumo's voice was clear to everyone in the clearing as she tried to get her head around this latest turn of events, "sorry, I was just expecting you to be a little… you know, older."

"That is quite alright Yakumo-san, it is not often you find a twelve year old with the skill to take the title of master," Naruto admitted freely, causing the young girl to look away nervously, "though to be fair, if it wasn't for your previous problem, you could probably be my rival right now."

Instantly the brown haired girl found herself blushing under his praise, honestly she had never expected any to praise her for anything, such a thing never happened with her family and Kurenai just kept telling her to stop when she tried to train, so this was a new situation for her.

"However, that doesn't matter now for one simple fact," the blond quickly decided to point out, "you didn't get the chance to learn the art of genjutsu because of your condition and are now simply a beginner in need of tutoring."

And with that the newly appointed genin found herself regaining her composure before inwardly flinching at the fact that she had once again lost control of her emotions, only to see the heterochromatic blond smirk at her knowingly.

"So I take it you decided to come here to train Yakumo, if you did then I will have to decline your wish, after all, right now she needs to strengthen her body before worrying about anything too strenuous," Kurenai stated seriously, earning a frown from the newly released girl.

"On the contrary, I came here with the intention of witnessing this team's ability first hand and have no intention of disrupting your training sessions," the red and blue eyed mercenary stated with his usual air of sophistication lacing his tone.

"If that's so, then I take it you intend on training Yakumo without supervision when she isn't at team training?" the red eyed instructor asked with a certain amount of unease clear in her voice at the prospect of him being left alone with the malleable girl.

"It's not as if you can stop me even if you want to Nai-sensei," despite the words the blond spoke, there was no condescension in his tone as he said them with an air of factuality that made it sound like he was simply talking about the weather… and that hurt the ruby eyed woman's pride. To think that a twelve year old could look down on her as inferior in ability, it was something that simply made her inwardly cringe at the reminder of the fact her student had surpassed her by such a young age.

"Perhaps but that doesn't change the fact I don't like the idea of you possibly corrupting her against the village," she finally settled on earning a narrowing of the young girls eyes at the fact she didn't believe she could decide things for herself.

"And why are you so certain I would even attempt to do something like that? As I have stated before, I am completely loyal to the village of Konohagakure no sato… just not necessarily the current Hokage," and once again the blond was met with a fierce glare off the raven haired beauty.

"Because you aren't doing anything to reinforce that fact and actually prove your loyalty," the genjutsu mistress stated seriously as the three genin looked on with a hint of nervousness entering their eyes.

"You mean outside of outing all of Orochimaru's spies, helping a young girl join the shinobi forces and deciding to teach one of the villages top ninja how to further improve on their specialty?" the heterochromatic blond asked with obvious amusement in his voice as he listed off the positive actions he had already made towards the village.

Despite herself, Kurenai couldn't stop herself from wincing at his remark. It was true, if you looked purely at his actions since returning to Konoha then he seemed to be perfectly loyal, however his demeanour just screamed traitor and to top it off, he didn't even deny that he didn't agree with current Hokage and that was something she found very unsettling.

"More than action is required to earn trust Naruto, surely you should know that," the red eyed woman once again stated as he simply began to smirk at her attempts of explaining her mistrust in him.

"Indeed, however do you think I would draw so much attention to myself if I really was planning on betraying the village?" the genjutsu master asked her with his usual, infuriating smirk, making her think for a couple of seconds.

"Maybe, you were going for a double bluff and it isn't working how you wanted it to," Kurenai stated knowing that he wouldn't deign her with a true answer.

"If that was the case then that would indicate that I overestimated Konoha's intelligence and therefore, lower my overall opinion of the village's ninja population," and immediately the ruby eyed beauty felt an aneurysm develop at the way he managed to turn her own words against her.

"Perhaps, they simply realised what you were doing and decided to make the correct decision concerning you," the three genin found themselves taking deep gulps as they proceeded to continue watching the confrontation before them, completely unaware of who could possibly win between the two.

"Then why is no one playing along?" and immediately the Jōnin knew he had her. If they really had come to the conclusion that he was performing a double bluff then they would've played along in order to let him think he was in control while simultaneously monitoring him for if he slipped up… however they were confronting him directly, proof that they were simply taking his demeanour at face value.

The way the raven haired beauty looked at the ground told the other four in the training field all they needed to know… Kurenai had completely lost the argument.

"Uh… Not to sound rude or anything but are you two finished arguing cause I'm hungry," Sakura asked the two talented illusionists, earning a smirk off the spiky haired blond and a sigh off the ruby eyed Jōnin.

"Certainly, I for one had no intention of starting such an argument, that was entirely Nai-sensei's fault," the whiskered boy said with a kind smile adorning his face causing the oldest in the training field to twitch in annoyance at his dismissal of responsibility, "so then, why don't we all go back into town and get some barbeque, my treat?"

"Do you have enough money to pay for it all Naruto?" the most experienced of the quartet asked him with a blank expression, uncertain if his intentions were to actually pay, or make the cashier think he'd paid when he hadn't… she wouldn't put either past the boy.

"Indeed, during my stint with Akatsuki I was partnered with Kakuzu of Takigakure and trust me when I say this, that man knew how to manage finances… honestly the number of times he tried to kill me for collecting jewellery and not letting him sell it was impressive," the blond admitted with an amused smirk adorning his face.

"Jewellery?" Sakura asked blankly, uncertain if she had heard her brother figure right.

"Yes, Jewellery," the whiskered Jinchūriki admitted calmly, "I have four passions in my life, Genjutsu, Jewellery, History and Education, all of which I have dedicated my efforts to mastering."

"History and Education?" Kurenai found herself asking with a raised eyebrow.

"Indeed, I have put quite a bit of effort into learning about the past and all that happened in this world," the heterochromatic boy stated with obvious pride in his tone, however he didn't go into any more detail such as how far back he had studied, "and I have analysed and deconstructed the ninja academies in all the different shinobi villages for effective teaching methods and exam practices."

And once again everyone froze.

Naruto had intimate knowledge of other villages educational facilities and didn't bother telling anyone? Seriously that didn't seem like the actions of someone who was loyal.

"And why haven't you informed Hokage-sama about this?" the genjutsu mistress asked him seriously as he turned his back on her and proceeded to start walking out of the field.

"He never displayed an interest in any secrets that were not my own, so I never bothered to tell him," the possessor of the Rokudo Rinne stated with a shrug, earning a few looks of disbelief from the other four in the area, "now are we going to get something to eat or are you going to stand there all day?"

And so with that, the official team eight proceeded to follow the boy with a certain amount of hesitation in their steps… that is until Yakumo decided to run up to the boy and walk alongside him with her hands held in front of her nervously as her breathing sped up slightly from exertion.

"Uh, Naruto-sensei, are you trying to turn me against Konoha?" the young girl asked seriously, earning a small chuckle from the boy.

"Tell me Yakumo, what is the one thing I insisted on beyond all others during our first lesson?" Naruto asked her calmly, making the other three listen in with the utmost attention.

Thinking back on her first lesson with the blond back when she was talking to Kurenai after being assigned to her team, the young genjutsu apprentice tried to pick out all the lessons she could remember before letting out a soft smile as she realised the one he meant.

"Make my own decisions," and with that the young brunette simply smiled as she came to one simple conclusion, even if everyone else in Konoha refused to trust the enigmatic blond, she would believe in him.

XXX XXX XXX

Orochimaru was not happy. He was not even remotely happy. He had received an emergency message from one of his spies within Konoha that Rokudo Mukuro had been seen entering Konoha.

That did not bode well for the snake summoner and he wouldn't be foolish enough to think otherwise… he knew that by the time he received the letter it would already be too late, Mukuro was if anything, a magnificent bastard and would've already routed out all the spies within Konoha… even Kabuto…

The pale skinned man let out a grimace at the mere thought that Kabuto would be in Konoha's hands, most probably already having had his brain split open by a Yamanaka and forced to reveal everything he knew about the sannin's plans and operations.

It also meant that the silver haired 'genin' couldn't sneak out and help Kimimaro survive longer… and with Kimimaro dying, he would lose his main tool in the control of Jūgo.

It also wouldn't help if a certain underling of his discovered the purple haired man was present in Konoha… honestly that girl would never stop talking about the man ever since she witnessed him crush Uchiha Itachi in a battle of genjutsu despite the Uchiha's ocular techniques being legendary in their power.

Yes, ever since she discovered that it was possible to reach such incredible heights without a kekkei genkai… she had become obsessed with the thought of becoming his apprentice.

Jirōbō had accused her of having a crush but stopped after she put him in one of her more… unpleasant genjutsu and then dared him to say it again.

Jirōbō stopped but everyone else in Oto took it up in his place.

Yes, Orochimaru would not let that girl discover her idol was now in Konoha, that would just be begging for her to run away, join Konoha, get her curse seal sealed and divulge everything she knew about Oto and himself to them in exchange for tutelage from the one man more slippery than himself.

Of course there was the whole question of how to pass on the news that the spy network within Konoha had been destroyed to everyone else without the girl finding out why he was so certain of it already.

It didn't help that if Mukuro didn't leave Konoha for awhile then his goals with the Chūnin exams could be compromised… especially if he ended up being there for the finals and appeared near the barrier he had planned for the sound four to maintain while he was fighting his sensei, honestly the idea of Tayuya dropping the barrier in exchange for training under the purple haired schemer made him uneasy.

Still, he was Orochimaru, he wouldn't be beaten by something like this, he would find a way to defeat the man that embodied the mist… well he would try his hardest that's for sure but even he had to admit that the thought of facing off against that man again was nerve wracking, especially given his track record against the man… twenty seven loses with no draws or wins.

"Maybe I should just give up while I'm not too far behind?" the yellow eyed genius muttered quietly to himself as he considered his situation before shaking his head in the negative, "no, I will defeat him, he will slip up sooner or later and then… I'll get him."

And with those thoughts in his head, the pale skinned missing nin proceeded to let out a series of nervous laughs as he tried to focus on his latest experiment only to find himself wondering if he would be better off crying in a corner before going to sleep.

It would probably be more productive for him than trying to deal with Mukuro after all.


End file.
